She Wasn't, but She Was
by AndromedaAI
Summary: 'I will get back to them,' she assured herself. 'I will make sure they know that I love them desperately.' Marcelle suddenly finds herself separated from her family after a bad accident and in the presence of a hobbit. While she has no idea how to get back, she finds herself securing a position in a company on a quest, and a strange man wants her to slay a dragon! Slow build. AU.
1. Down the Hill

**Hello, readers, thank you for clicking on this story :3 For those who have read my other fics, thank you for being nosy, and I'm sorry for not updating my other stories for...ever. lol**

 **Unfortunately, their updating might go a little bit slower than what you, and I, would like. I procrastinate alot.**

 **I hope you enjoy this fanfiction, I have been wanting to write this for a long, long time - ever since the first Hobbit movie came out, in fact.**

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1 – **Down the Hill** – 1

The wiper blades swished back and forth, clearing snowflakes from her field of view. The red light from the brake-lights of the vehicles ahead of her lit up water droplets and snow crystals on her windshield, reminding her of the Christmas lights she saw hanging from various houses lining the street.

Her little Honda CUV puttered along as she worked to safely navigate the streets. There had been a big dump of snow a few days before, and the town was still struggling to clear the roads, thus letting the snow be tread down and become slick.

In the backseat of her car, her father's birthday present was cradled gently. It was a high-end compound long bow that came with a few arrows, and she had managed to pay for it all herself with the money she had managed to earn while working at the local pet store. The strength needed to draw the string could be adjusted from between 10 to 70 pounds—a range that her father would need just in case he needed to shoot some wild animal that might go after the horse or the cats.

It was the only thing her father really wanted for Christmas, and she was happy to get it for him—even if it took a sizable chunk out of the "extra-curricular-spending" fund she was filling for the time when she was away at college.

The lights from the streetlamps and the headlights and the taillights created eerie and surreal surroundings.

Marcelle tucked a lock of chocolate brown hair behind her ear as she prepared to turn up Main Street. She slowed as she approached the intersection and flicked on her indicator. A few seconds later, she allowed the car to coast into the intersection before she turned and went up the hill. She followed Main Street as it went up the hill. It was lined with storefronts, most of them closed due to the hour. A quick glance at the clock to the right of the steering wheel told her that it was approaching five in the evening. She hadn't told her mother that she was going out to shop for the bow, and few other gifts that she didn't want anyone to see quite yet, so she had the feeling that she was going to be chewed out when she got home.

After all, she was supposed to be home an hour ago, and she had forgotten to tell her mother that she was going to be home later than suspected.

Her phone began to ring as she slowed at the last stoplight separating her from the nearly stop-less, ten minute journey home. She quickly hooked the Bluetooth headset earpiece to her ear and answered the call. "Hello?"

" _Marcelle Temperance Bowman_ , where are you?" barked her mother's familiar voice.

Even though she was twenty years of age, she still hadn't gotten used to how harsh her mother's voice could sound when she was angry. That was why she tried to avoid it more often than not. "I'm just driving past the last set of lights on Main Street now, Mom," Marcelle told her as the lights turned green. She pressed lightly down on the gas pedal as her mother huffed.

"You were supposed to be here an hour ago, young lady! What on Earth have you been _doing_?!"

Marcelle ground her teeth as she fought to keep her temper in check. She couldn't lose it now, not when she had to focus on driving. Once she left the boundaries of the town, she would have to watch for wildlife, with varied from moose to deer to, well, pretty much any other large wild animal that wandered around in the Albertan wilderness.

"If you really want to know, Mom, I was out Christmas shopping." It was nigh impossible to keep secrets from her mother. Most of the time, she spent her hours chauffeuring her mother, grandmother, and occasionally her younger brother from grocery stores to Walmart to doctor's appointments. Her mother had damaged her knees so badly and now she could no longer get into the driver's seat without hurting her them. Hardly ever could Marcelle get out of driving her family around, and hardly could she ever go shopping without her mother guessing what she was getting.

"You should have told me!"

Marcelle often wondered if her mother could read her thoughts—because, sometimes, when she truly managed to keep her mother from seeing her present when she came out of the store and made it back to the vehicle, her mother somehow still knew what she had gotten her for Christmas. Realistically, Marcelle figured that her mother went and rummaged around in her room when she was off at work.

"Look, I really do not want to talk about this, Mom," Marcelle insisted. The last thing she wanted was to arrive home and have to listen to her mother berate her on her poor decisions until she went to bed. _Maybe I'll go to bed early tonight—that way I can escape with only minimal badgering?_ She knew her mother was only worrying about her, but sometimes she felt that she went a little bit overboard.

" _I_ want to talk about this—!"

"I _love_ you, Mommy," she said, cutting her mother off before she could go into a tirade. Once she got into one of those, she would never stop, and sometimes Marcelle worried that one of her blood vessels would burst from high blood pressure.

Flicking on her indicator again, she pulled out onto the North Road, which was actually a highway that lead deep into the wilderness, to who-knows-where. She slowly pressed on the gas pedal again, urging the vehicle to slowly accelerate. Her mother and father had gone to great lengths to make sure her Honda was prepped for winter—even though they couldn't afford it. It made her feel so guilty. With studded winter tires, she could gain more traction on ice, but it still couldn't keep her from sliding through intersections. She had done that a couple of times already, both in the same intersection.

"I _love you so much_ , Mommy," Marcelle continued. "I know you care so much about me, but don't you think you're being just a little too overprotective?"

The North Road stretched off into the darkness, farther than her headlight brights could reach. This was where she felt she would have to focus more. Her headlights lit up the road, but not much of the ditches to either side.

"I can't help it, you're my baby," her mother replied. Good, maybe she could diffuse this before she got home. Then, she would be able to enjoy a nice, relaxing evening with her family.

 _Goodness gracious, I can't wait until I go to college so I can gain some measure of freedom,_ Marcelle mused.

It was then that she suddenly hit a patch of black ice—ice she couldn't see. When she turned the wheel to coast around the corner just ahead, the car didn't turn and instead continued straight on. She saw the guard-rail just before she hit and went through it. Marcelle let out a scream of terror as the ground suddenly disappeared from under her car and it plummeted into the ravine below.

The wheels met turf, but it continued to scream downwards. The sudden jolt of the landing caused her face to go crashing into the steering wheel before she could stop it. She could hear her mother calling her name, but all she could do was scream as she careened out of control. Her headlights lit up the foliage before her. Snowbanks, bushes, saplings, and trees rushed by as the Honda picked up speed.

Marcelle managed to steer the car just enough to miss smashing into a mature tree that stood in the way. She steered through a row of saplings that shattered on impact and bounced off her windshield before disappearing into the darkness.

"MARCELLE! Talk to me, baby!" her mother pleaded suddenly, sobbing heavily.

Marcelle finally found the breath and brain cells needed to speak as the hill seemed to become less steep. "Mom—Mom, my car just slid off the road, a-and right now I'm fighting to keep it from crashing into anything. But the h-hill seems to be evening out now—and the trees are thinning—"

"Keep me on the line, baby, and tell me where you are once you've stopped," she told me.

"Alright." Her car hit a large bump, probably a boulder covered in packed snow. Her car was launched into the air again before it slammed down at the bottom of the hill. Something snapped as she landed, before the car did a little hop thanks to its suspension. It kept going, racing out into a field, until it crashed into what looked to be a hill. Marcelle's head smacked into the steering wheel again, and this time the force of it knocked her unconscious.

* * *

He woke up with a startled gasp when a loud bang was accompanied by his house shaking like he was experiencing one of those "earth-tremors" he had heard about.

He shot to a sitting position and waited for several minutes after the shaking ceased. It hadn't been for very long, but he couldn't be too careful. If it was an earth-tremor, there could be "after-tremors", as they put it. But maybe it was just a bolt of lightning that struck his house? Some close lightning-strikes had produced thunderclaps loud enough to shake his hobbit-hole before.

The hobbit was now wide awake, so he climbed out of bed and padded out to his kitchen. He went about making himself a cup of tea to help calm his nerves.

He filled his tea kettle and hung it on the hook in the fireplace. The fire was merely embers now, so he quickly put some more kindling on them and then carefully stacked a couple of logs on top. It took a few moments, but soon the fire was roaring again. It heated the kettle quickly, and by the time he had returned with a teacup and a teabag, the kettle was beginning to whistle.

Quickly grabbing the flimsy cloth hot-plate hanging from the mantle, he used it to protect his hand as he grabbed the handle. The kettle stopped whistling once he popped the cap off its blunt spout. He then poured the hot water into his teacup and sat back to wait for the tea to steep.

By the time he figured his tea was strong enough, his curiosity was starting to get the better of him. Was that really thunder that shook his home? He glanced down at his tea before he made up his mind.

He stood from where he was sitting in his chair by the fire, and tightened the sash of his robe. He shuffled to his round front door and slowly opened it. He peered outside and looked up at the sky, looking for any sign of foul weather. There was none. The sky was clear and the moon was full, large, and extremely bright.

Slowly, he edged himself outside. He left his door open a crack, just so if he had to make a quick dive for the safety of the indoors, he could.

He walked through his front-garden gate, which he left open as well, and quickly made his way up to the top of the hill in which he house was built into. His hobbit-hole was one of the only homes built into this particular hill, and had been there since his father had built it for his mother.

When he stood on top of the hill, above his hobbit hole, he cast his gaze about. The moonlight was bright, but it was still hard to see. The light from the moon didn't seem to illuminate anything except the fields all around until you were practically on top of what you were looking for or what was in your way.

That didn't seem to be the entirely case that night, fortunately. For there was something large and metallic pushed up against the side of his hill, reflecting moonlight back into the air.

He slowly walked down to it, unsure of what it was. What could it be? Was it made of metal? How could something so large be made of metal?

In the end, his curiosity got the better of him once more, and he didn't stop until he was standing right next to this…thing.

There were windows in the large metal thing. Was it a carriage of some sort? If it was, it must have lost its horse, and that was why it had crashed into his hill. But where was the driver? Was he inside? He thought for a moment. Could the driver be injured?

He began to search for a door, and soon found one. He tried to turn its handle in order to have it release its latch, but it would not budge. In the end, the door popped open when he pulled on the handle.

Pulling the door open turned out to be no small task as it was surprisingly heavy. But once it was open, he came upon a surprising discovery.

Inside, slumped over in the closest seat, was a young woman of Men.

 **To let you guys know, if you enjoyed this, I have several chapters written out already. I plan to publish a chapter once a week...so every Wednesday. If I miss the Wednesday deadline, more often than not its because I was really busy and ended up not getting the chapter finished in time :D**


	2. Of Hobbits and Women

**I've come to realize that my story may look like another 'girl "falls" into Middle-Earth' cliché, but it's storta…** ** _not_** **. It's more like a 'girl** ** _drives_** **into Middle-Earth' or 'girl** ** _crashes_** **into Middle-Earth/Bilbo's hobbit-hole', lol XD**

 **Honestly, I wanted to deviate from that trope a bit. No matter how similar the premise of my fic sounds compared to other stories that have come before mine (and I've yet to see or read), it's going to be different in** ** _some way_** **(I hope).**

 **This is an AU, by the way, and I've updated the summary to reflect this. Because, honestly, rereading what seems like the same thing over and over can be boring. The journey to Erebor/the Lonely Mountain will remain the same, but I've added a subplot in order to spice it up a bit.**

 **Now if you're still interested, I hope you enjoy this new chapter! :3**

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2 - **Of Hobbits and Women** \- 2

Bilbo didn't know what to do. The young woman looked terribly beaten up. She was pale, and it looked like she had either bit the inside of her cheek or her bottom lip hard enough for it to bleed. She also had a large gash on her forehead, but it seemed to have stopped bleeding.

He slowly reached out and poked her arm. All he got was a groggy moan and a light flutter of her eyes-lids, though they did not open.

The hobbit remembered how his mother would press the back of her hand to his forehead when he wasn't feeling well. So, he stood on his tip-toes and reached up, pressing the back to her cheek, and then to her forehead. Her skin was cool, clammy, and sweaty.

Bilbo didn't know what to do. The young woman was obviously hurt, but he didn't know how badly. He couldn't, in conscience, go back inside and wait until morning. Because he didn't know how bad she was hurt, he felt there could be a possibility that she could die if left out here. It was cold, and she could die from that alone without warmth.

His main problem was that he didn't know if he would be able to carry her into his home. She was of Man, and it looked like she was somewhat overweight. Even if she was bone-thin, she would have been heavier than he was, and Bilbo never had much success in carrying things heavier than himself.

That's when he got an idea. He trotted over to the side garden where there was a little shed built into the side of the hill. He opened the door and pulled out a wheelbarrow, one he usually used to transport dirt or dead plants he would then burn in one of his fireplaces. He rolled it up beside the metal carriage and positioned it beside the girl.

That was when he ran into another problem. With the wheelbarrow now taking up all the space between him and the girl, he couldn't reach her properly.

 _There must be another door on the other side,_ Bilbo thought determinedly. He went around the front of the carriage and found that there was, indeed, another door. He smiled in a moment of triumph.

Most carriages he had seen had only one door, but he had heard, on occasion, that there were those that had two. Though this one seemed to have four. _How odd,_ he mused.

He popped open this door and scrambled into the interior of the carriage with a thoughtfully-placed step. He kneeled on the strange cushioned seat and took a moment to stare at the young woman. The seats were separated, oddly enough, so there was a small gap separating him from where she sat.

Her chest slowly rose and fell, showing him that she was still alive. In the dark, it was almost all he could make out.

Bilbo eased himself forward and stepped into the space between the seats. As he straightened, his head bumped against the ceiling and something hard, and the inside of the carriage was suddenly flooded with light.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but once he could see again he was met by a disturbing sight.

Some of the young woman's mid-length brown hair was plastered to her face, stuck to the blood from the gash on her forehead. She was even paler than he had assumed, and her face held a slightly pained expression in her unconscious oblivion.

Bilbo reached forward and grasped her shoulders. He slowly began to push her sideways, towards the wheelbarrow, but kept a firm handle on her shoulders. He hooked his toes under her seat as her weight began to drag him with her. In the end, she slipped from his fingers and she fell into the wheelbarrow. Bilbo cried out as he lost his balance and fell back into the carriage. It rocked slightly before going still once more.

He let out a grunt as his back smarted after he landed on something solid. He soon discovered that the cause of the pain was the strange buckle on the seat that was beside the one the girl had been sitting in.

 _What an odd carriage,_ Bilbo couldn't help but think as he took a moment to run a hand through his curly hair. He caught sight of what looked to be the young woman's handbag and picked it up before he switched off the light and left the carriage.

He moved her away from the door and shut it. He plunked her bag down on her stomach before grasping the handles of the wheelbarrow. He took a few deep breaths and squared his shoulders before heaving up on the handles. A pained grunt left him as he fought to keep the wheelbarrow steady under the young woman's weight. "Why couldn't the wheelbarrow have been invented with _two_ wheels instead of _one_?" he complained as he began to push, opting to go around the hill because going over it would have been impossible.

He was red-faced by the time he reached the path, where the pushing only seemed a tad bit easier. His breathing came in short bursts, and he was feeling a bit faint. But he made it to his big green round door and set the wheelbarrow down.

The hobbit took a moment to catch his breath before he went over and pushed his front door open wide. He then managed to push the wheelbarrow and the young woman in without scratching his floor. After shutting the front door and locking it, he pushed the wheelbarrow the last several feet before arriving in one of the guest bedrooms.

It took almost a dozen minutes before Bilbo was able to get the young woman onto the bed, where she almost fell to the floor when her weight upset his balance and sent him flying from the where he sat kneeling on the bed. With all his might, he hauled the girl onto the bed, and he left her laying on the bed, on top of the covers, because he wasn't going to struggle with trying to get her under them. In the end, he managed to adjust her so that she was lying almost normally on the bed. He threw a thick blanket over her before dragging the wheelbarrow out of the room.

* * *

The first thing she heard was the chirping of birds originating from somewhere outside. She let her eyes stay closed for a few moments before she dared to crack them open.

She expected to see herself slumped over the steering wheel, blood leaking from somewhere on her face, maybe from her forehead where enough had run over one of her closed eyes to seal it shut until she'd be able to clean it off. She reached up and felt around her face, searching for any sign of injury.

Almost right away she discovered the large gash that ran just above her right eyebrow. It felt like it had scabbed for the time being, meaning that it was more like a large cut than a gouge, but she quickly became confused when she didn't detect any sign of blood around it. _How can I have a gash without any blood?_ she wondered.

She ran her tongue along her lips and around the inside of her mouth, and found that her bottom lip had split. It had scabbed too, and there was also an absence of blood.

Blinking, she tried to focus her eyes and eventually managed to observe that she was no longer in her car, and that she was now laying in a canopied bed. Light shone through a crack between two gold curtains hanging over a round window just to the right of the foot of her bed. And that's when she realized that her ankles were propped up on the footboard of the bed. Since when were beds made so short? A quick glance up at the headboard told her that her head was mere centimeters from touching it.

Now she could focus her sight, but she quickly realized that she didn't have her glasses with her. And there was no sign of her purse. Who had taken it?

Marcelle decided that she needed to sit up. She didn't feel comfortable laying down in this strange place, not anymore. Sitting up, unfortunately, turned out to be a more difficult procedure than she remembered.

 _I must have really been beat up when I crashed,_ Marcelle realized as she inched up into a sitting position. Muscles protested, her ankles, wrists, and neck ached, and her head swam terribly when she was finally fully righted. For a moment, she felt nauseous, but she fought it off with a few deep breaths.

When she stood, her head swam again, and she stumbled over to the window as her stomach lurched. She opened the window and took a few deep breaths or fresh air. _I wonder if I've got a concussion?_ she contemplated grimly.

From what she could see, she was in some sort of antique home, reminiscent of the medieval houses she had managed to get a glimpse of on TV. But it was different in a way. It didn't look like it was made by a poor man, and it didn't look like it was made by an overly-rich man either. It was sort of in the middle, homely-looking. It was something you would expect from a cottage-hunting show.

She turned towards the bedroom door and started to make her way over to it. When she came up to it, she made a startling discovering. Now this close, she could clearly make out the height of the door, and she couldn't help but gape.

Marcelle was 5 foot 7 inches tall, so most doors where much taller than she was to accommodate for tall men, but this door looked to be no taller than five feet at max.

Slowly, Marcelle opened the round door, and stooped under the top of the doorframe. She would probably smacked her face against it if she hadn't.

The door didn't squeak as it swung open, but that didn't stop her heart from thundering. _Where exactly am I?_ she wondered. _Who saved me? Why didn't they call for an ambulance?_ She stopped and let out a groan when a sharp pain jabbed her right between the eyes. _I shouldn't even be moving. I should be at the hospital._ She continued walking.

Abruptly, the hall ended and she was standing in what looked to be a foyer. She saw the round door, took note of the fancy, filigree-like black metal bolted to it, and noticed the smell of soup cooking on the stove. She eyed the outdoors through one of the windows by the door, and saw that it was still morning. _Yep, a little early for soup._

She glanced to her right and saw that the doorway lead into what looked like a kitchen. There was a table, several herbs hanging from the ceiling, a fireplace, and what looked to be a bay-window. That was all she could see from where she was standing, so she inched forward.

And that's when she spotted her purse. It was sitting on the windowsill. Her glasses should be in it—she was wearing her prescription night-time driving glasses when she crashed. Those were probably ruined, now that she thought about it.

Marcelle went to walk over to the windowsill, and was bending over to go through the doorway when someone appeared in the kitchen from what seemed to be another entrance. It was a short, little man.

She quickly straightened and ended up banging her head on the top of the round archway. "Ow!"

"Oh dear!" the little man cried before quickly walking over to her. He dropped the things in his hands on the table before coming to her side. "Come over here and sit down," he advised before gently grasping her elbow and lightly setting a hand at her back.

Marcelle rubbed at the top of her head, which throbbed painfully, and set herself down on the low chair that the small man pulled out for her. She ran a hand down her face and struggled to banish the blush from her cheeks as man positioned himself on the other side of the table.

"You should still be in bed," the man chastised gently. "You were a mess when I found you!"

She blinked at him. "W-what happened?" was what fell out of her mouth. She wasn't quite sure what to say. She was still trying to take everything in, especially the man before her.

Marcelle had never met a man so short before, who lived in a house built for his height. His hair was curly and brown with gold highlights. He had a slightly squared jaw and a tiny clef on his chin. He was dressed in green breeches with brown suspenders and an off-white button-up shirt. She couldn't see his feet now, but she had seen them when he came over to help her to the chair. She thought she was seeing things, for his feet her disproportionate for his small body, and were covered in thick curly hair.

But when he went over and retrieved a bowl from the cupboard, she caught sight of his feet again and saw that she was not imagining anything. And were those pointed ears peeking out from under that hair?

"You gave me quite a scare, young lady," he began. "In the middle of the night, I was scared witless when your carriage crashed into my hill!"

 _Carriage?_ She slowly cleared her throat. "H-hill?"

The man went over to the fireplace and ladled some of the soup from the cauldron there into the bowl. He came over and set the bowl down in front of her. "Yes, _my_ hill. You are in my hobbit-hole, my home."

 _That must be what I crashed into last night,_ she thought hazily. _The thing that knocked me out. I hit his hill._ She figured his house was one of those houses that were built underground. It was a style that was trending in several different parts of the world, but to build a house underground was a very expensive procedure. _But…hobbit? Hobbits are not a real thing…they don't exist._

She looked down at the bowl and saw that its contents was broth, not soup. Foggily, she remembered that eating broth was good when you didn't know how injured you were. At least, that was what her grandmother told her.

Her eyes flew wide and she straightened in realization. "Oh no!"

The man whirled around from where he was preparing his own breakfast. "Oh no? What do you mean, 'oh no'?" he asked, face scrunching up in slight concern.

Marcelle looked up at him and heaved a shaky sigh. "My parents don't know where I am! I was talking to my mother when I crashed," she explained. She tried to rise to her feet, but became woozy and ended up sitting back down.

Now the man seemed down-right confused. "How could you be talking to your mother? You were alone in your carriage when I found you."

Marcelle looked up at him incredulously. How could he not know that when she said she was talking to her mother, she meant she was talking to her on the phone?

"No, she wasn't _in_ the carriage—I was talking to her on my phone!"

"'Phone'?"

She frowned. " _Cell_ phone! You know, the device you use to talk to people over a long distance?" she specified.

The man just stared at her, that confused look never leaving his face.

That was when she came to strange and vague conclusion. "You don't know what a cell phone is, do you?" she realized. She had thought it was nigh impossible for someone to _not know_ what a cell phone was nowadays. The only place she figured where someone didn't know what a cell phone was, was if they were someone who lived in a poor part of Africa or one of those rare tribes who lived on remote islands or in the middle of the Amazon Rain Forest without contact with the outside world.

But this wasn't Africa. This man didn't look like he was African or belonged to one of those tribes.

Marcelle managed to stand and tripped her way over to where her purse sat.

"Hey! No! Sit down!" the man cried as he intercepted her. Marcelle stopped and sent an icy look down at the man. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and she seized that moment. She reached over him and grabbed the purse before she returned herself to her seat.

She accidentally bumped her knees on the table, and she found she couldn't sit with her feet tucked under her chair. She had to stretch them out.

Pushing the bowl of soup and the cutlery away, she set the leather bag on the table before her. She glanced up at the man before looking down at her purse again.

"What is your name?" she asked before she reached in and extracted her wallet. She checked to see if anything had been stolen as she waited for an answer. When he didn't answer, she prompted, "My name is Marcelle Bowman."

She switched her wallet out for her phone as the little man sighed. "I…I'm…Bilbo Baggins."

Marcelle paused for a moment. Something itched at the back of her mind, telling her that the little man's name seemed vaguely familiar. Suddenly, there was a hand in her face, and she nearly dropped her phone in surprise. She looked up and saw Bilbo was holding his hand out for a handshake. Marcelle quickly grasped his hand and shook it.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Baggins," she said politely.

"Please, call me Bilbo," he said with a small smile. "Pleased to meet you as well, Miss Bowman." He paused for a moment. "Or is it 'Mrs. Bowman'?"

Marcelle allowed herself to laugh. "No, it's just 'miss'. I'm not married. And if I have to call you Bilbo, you can call me Marcelle."

* * *

Marcelle quickly began to miss her family after she finished her soup. Bilbo escorted her to the sitting room as she contemplated the situation she was in.

"Where am I?" she asked him as soon as she saw him sit down in the seat across from the one she sat in.

Bilbo paused, and then sat back in the chair. "That's a bit of an odd question."

Marcelle sighed. "It's not an 'odd' question, Mr. Baggins," she said and pressed her lips together. She threw her hands out and looked at him wide and serious eyes. "I honestly don't know where I am!"

Bilbo stared at her, before he adopted a thoughtful look. He looked into the fire next to them and stared into the flames. Marcelle couldn't help but watch him. The flames flickered in his eyes, making it hard for her to see what he was really thinking.

Sorrow threatened to consume her as she waited. She couldn't stop herself from thinking back to the argument she had with her mother before she crashed. She wished it hadn't had to be like that, but then she remembered how her mother had cried for her before she hit Bilbo's hill.

She knew her mother loved her. She loved her mother just as much. But how was she supposed to get back to her? She couldn't possibly walk all the way home, not in the state she was in now. And her apparent saviour seemed to have no knowledge of any modern amenities. He did not know what a phone was, so he couldn't have called for an ambulance. He thought her car was a _carriage_ —she didn't have the heart, nor the patience, to tell him that it could power itself and did not need the aid of horses. She would then have to explain it to him.

 _This must be a dream,_ she mused. _And right now, the reason Bilbo is taking so long to answer is because my mind is taking too long to decide on a response for him to say._

But then he surprised her. "You are in my home. This is Bag End," he said, gesturing to their surroundings as he turned his attention back to her, "of Hobbiton. In the Shire."

Marcelle blinked, wondering if she had heard him correctly. "Th-the Shire?" she stuttered. _Why do those names seem so familiar?_ "But before I crashed, I was on the road that leads to my home, just outside Rivercrossing—in Alberta, in Canada."

Bilbo had never heard of a Rivercrossing, or a place called Alberta, or a land called Canada. "Your country or land may be outside the Shire, somewhere," he tried to assure her.

All Marcelle could do in response was run a hand down her face again as she tried to bite back the tears. She wasn't entirely successful, and a tear escaped. It trailed down her cheek before clinging to her chin for a moment. It finally dropped to her chest, where it soaked into her strange shirt.

"Can I see a map?" she asked. She wanted to see where she was in comparison to her home. She couldn't have gone far. _Maybe, I'm in an Amish community,_ she thought before quickly dismissing it.

Immediately, Bilbo got to his feet and disappeared from the sitting room. He came back with a large, leather-bound book in his hands, and he handed it to her before he went and sat back down.

Marcelle opened it to the first page and noted the map. The next page also held a map. And the next. It was a map book. Marcelle sent a smile of thanks to Bilbo before she began to study the map in depth.

Most of the maps were of this 'Shire' and varied in detail. But some were of the Shire _and_ the lands around it.

Hobbiton was situated by a road that seemed to stretch to the east. Around it were places, probably towns or hamlets, called Bywater and Brandybuck. There was the Old Forest, Buckland, and the Barrow Downs. On the edge of the map she was looking at, there was a town called Bree. There was a road that went south called The Green Way. Marcelle turned to another map and gazed upon it, searching for any sign of familiarity, but found none.

The world around the Shire was nothing like Alberta and the places she was familiar with. She finally came to one conclusion, and one conclusion only:

With a pale face, she looked up at the little man, the hobbit who sat across from her, and said, "I am far, far from home, Mr. Baggins."

The hobbit looked up at her with a look in his eyes that told her that he did not quite understand what she had just said. "What do you mean? Of course you are far from home!"

Marcelle slowly shook her head. "Bilbo…there is no sign of my…land in any of your maps," she tried to clarify. She wasn't sure if Bilbo would believe what she was saying once he got what she was trying to tell him. He seemed to be quite a down-to-earth fellow. "They are not on any of the maps, so I must have traveled a long way before I came to be here."

Bilbo leaned forward and gripped the arms of his chair. "How far are you saying?" he asked, even though she had a feeling that he had an idea, and soon she had the answer. "Are you saying that you are from across the sea, that you are not from Middle-Earth?"

Marcelle saw the incredulity in the small man's eyes, in the way his eyebrows came together slightly. She quickly spoke before Bilbo could make up his mind that what she was saying was preposterous. "I am not making this up, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. Canada is not on any of your maps, let alone Alberta or Rivercrossing." She slipped a note pad and a pencil from her purse, which sat on the floor between her feet, and opened it to a blank page.

Quickly, she drew a rough sketch of the province and the provinces around it. Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories were not accurate in their shapes in the slightest, but that did not matter. Bilbo did not know their real shapes. She drew a dot in the approximate location of her hometown and labeled it before providing a smaller dot to where she believed her home was in conjunction to the town. She then drew a dot for Edmonton and Calgary, and added one for Jasper because she felt like it. She added mountain-shapes along the border between British Columbia and Alberta and labeled them as the Rocky Mountains.

"This is what my 'land' looks like," she said to Bilbo as she leaned forward and handed him the note pad.

He took it, and for a good long while Marcelle watched as he studied it. In the end, he looked up at her in a way that told her that he did not quite know what to think about her.

* * *

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter :) It was a lot of fun to write.**

 **I want to just remind you that I am updating this story once a week. This allows me to write the chapter and focus on editing it before I present it to you guys. I'm not abandoning this story!**

* * *

 **duchesseduo:** I'm glad you don't think Marcelle is a Mary-Sue, and I'm thankful that she isn't one. You don't have to worry because her life is not going to be easy or nice during the journey to the Lonely Mountain.

 **alexma:** Thanks! I hope you enjoyed this newest chapter!

 **icanhascamaro:** Thank you! I hope this story continues to be interesting.

 **Sortinghat:** I'm sorry, have you reviewed the wrong fic? Because this story hasn't been abandoned. It's only been on the site for a week.


	3. Cameras, Clothes, and that Strange Girl

**Disclaimer: (forgot to do this for the last couple of chapters, whoopsies) I do not own** ** _The Hobbit_** **. It belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson. I'm not going to make any money off of this, I'm only doing it for fun. That means I only own Marcelle T. Bowman, and not Bilbo Baggins. What a shame!**

 **Thank you for the reviews, guys! It is so uplifting that you guys seem to be liking this story.**

 **I have a feeling that you might be wondering where this story is going, because now we have three chapters and the dwarves have yet to show up. Well Gandalf has to come first, but unfortunately he doesn't poke his head into the picture until Chapter 5.**

 **Honestly, I wanted Marcelle to get to know Bilbo before they set out on the adventure… so she had a more legitimate reason for going to Erebor than "just 'cuz".**

 **Anyway, here's chapter 3!**

* * *

3 - **Cameras, Clothes, and that Strange Girl** \- 3  
 _Or, Marcelle tries, and begins, to fit in._

Bilbo did not know what to think about his unexpected guest. She was odd, and probably a bit…broken in the head.

He couldn't let himself fully believe that she had come from across the sea. He had grown up believing and being told that Middle-Earth was the only habitable space in the world. Miss Bowman could not have come from across the sea. She was mistaken.

And the way she was dressed was quite discomfiting. It appeared that she had only one outfit—the one she was wearing—and it was akin to a travel outfit he had heard of, but never really seen. All hobbit-girls and hobbit-women wore long, ankle-length skirts or dresses. She wore a baggy blue shirt, and long black pants that flared out slightly at the knee. When he found her, she had been wearing mid-calf purple boots, and a mid-thigh plum-purple jacket. He had removed them when he managed to get her onto the bed.

Miss Bowman was also of the Big People, of the race of Men, and she was quite tall, intimidating even, though he felt she didn't mean to be. When he had stood next to her and had helped her to the chair in the kitchen, he had noted how he would have had to be at least a head taller to even come up to her shoulder.

She was a young adult, twenty years old she told him, and she told him that she had a family—a younger brother who was thirteen named Jason, and an older brother named Mitchell, who was twenty-four. She had a mother and a father, but her mother's health wasn't going well and her father was away working constantly.

Every time Bilbo looked into her eyes, he saw something. Sadness, mostly, but once in a while they took on a haunted look—a look so sad and desolate that, somehow, he felt it was because _she_ felt that she would never see her family ever again. And that thought saddened him a bit because he had a feeling that that would be true.

Marcelle Bowman believed that she was not from Middle-Earth, and for as long as she believed that she would never see her family again.

Bilbo found Marcelle sitting cross-legged on top of his hill about a week after he had dragged her into his hobbit-hole, staring out over Hobbiton with a strange white and black tablet in her hands. It was a lovely sunny day, the sky was clear, and there was a slight breeze, signalling the onset of winter. Already the leaves were turning colour and falling from their trees, but the grass would stay green until the snow fell.

The hobbit sat himself down beside the young woman and looked off in the direction she was looking. From what he could see, it looked like Marcelle was looking down at the farmers' fields. Distantly, he could hear the voices of those who were out and about.

He turned his attention to the strange tablet in Marcelle's hands. "What is that?" he asked, gesturing to it.

Marcelle blinked in surprise before she looked down at her foreign object. She glanced at Bilbo before she was silent for a moment longer. "This…is my cell phone," she told him. "The device I told you about when I first met you." She handed it to him and let her hands fall to her lap.

She let him look at it. Bilbo first ran his fingers over it, getting to know its shape and feel before he pressed the button at the bottom of the black rectangle. The word 'Samsung' was written at the top of the rectangle in silver letters, though he did not know why.

The rectangle lit up, surprising the hobbit. He nearly dropped the object, but managed to save it before it hit the grass-covered ground. He held it up so that he could see the rectangle again, but before he could look at it for long, it went dark again. The hobbit looked at the object in confusion for a good long while before he pressed the button again. When it lit up again, he gazed at what it showed. It was magical.

"What you are looking at is a screen, Bilbo," Marcelle suddenly piped up. She inched closer so she could gesture to different parts of the 'screen' and tell him what they mean. "This is the time, date, and this little picture means that if I slide it up just so, I can quickly access the camera."

Bilbo looked at her inquisitively. "Camera?" he echoed.

It took a few moments, but eventually a look of realization appeared on the girl's face. "Oh! You don't have cameras?"

Bilbo shook his curly-haired head. "What is a cahm-er-ah's purpose?" he asked, spelling out the foreign word.

Marcelle thought about it. "It takes pictures?" she replied. But when Bilbo grew even more confused, she quickly asked, "What do you do when you want to capture a person's face in an image?"

The hobbit blinked. "We have them sit while someone skilled sketches them out on a piece of paper."

Understanding sparkled in Marcelle's eyes, and she smiled. "A camera is a device that can make a sketch of someone almost instantaneously, it can literally take a moment in time and trap it on a piece of paper as if it had stolen it from the fabric of reality itself," she explained. "Though, my cell phone can't put the pictures on paper. Would you like me to show you an example?"

Curiosity bloomed within his dark eyes, and he nodded.

"Alright then," she said. "Stay right where you are." She quickly pushed herself away from him after she took the phone from him. She unlocked her phone and tapped on the camera's app. It took a second for it to appear on the screen, but once it did, she held it up and pointed it at Bilbo.

The camera recognised Bilbo's face and focused on it while letting the background go out of focus only a little. With Bilbo only a foot or so away from her, she did not have to zoom in at all, thus she did not lose any quality in the process. Bilbo looked towards her and the camera with a slight look of apprehension.

"This isn't some sort of sorcery, is it?" he voiced. "I do not particularly wish to be trapped inside your phone today, Marcelle."

Marcelle chuckled. "Not to worry, Mr. Baggins. If my phone ate people when it took pictures, I would not be here today. I've taken a few of myself."

Bilbo still looked particularly worried, but not as much when she took the picture. The phone clicked loudly, and then it was all over. Marcelle sat herself next to the hobbit and showed him the picture. Bilbo took the phone and stared down at the picture…finding himself staring back. _She was right_ , he thought with a small grin on his face. "This is really…really good," he told her and looked up at her. "It's…excellent, even!"

Marcelle smiled the first real smile she had since he met her at what he said. "I'm glad you like it," she said. "It means a lot to me."

They sat there in the sun for the next half an hour where Marcelle showed the hobbit pictures of her family. Bilbo learned the faces of her brothers and her mother and father, and little facts about them. Mitchell was tall and had black hair like his father's. He was taller than Marcelle by at least a head, and she told him that he was around six feet five inches tall. Jason had dark brown hair, and was already taller than his sister despite the seven-year difference at about five foot ten inches. Her mother had greying brown hair and stood at five foot six, and her father had black hair and stood at a rounded six feet. Every member of her immediate family had hazel eyes except her father who had one blue eye and one brown eye. And Marcelle was the only one in the family who was overweight.

It appeared that Marcelle's family was descended from tall people. Bilbo couldn't help but wonder if they were of noble stock, because most kings and queens he had heard of that were of the race of Men were tall.

There were many mysteries surrounding Marcelle, and he hoped that he would figure them out eventually. Because, even if he liked it or not, Bilbo had started to like Marcelle, and didn't feel that was right to turn her out into the world when she didn't know where she was.

* * *

A few days after she had woken up in that bed in one of Bilbo's guest rooms, she remembered that her car was still sitting up against the back of Bilbo's hill. So, despite Bilbo's wishes for her to remain resting, she had gone out and gathered the things from her car and put her things and the presents into the guest room.

Bilbo followed her out to her car when she went back for the last load, walking so quietly that Marcelle didn't know that he was there until she stopped and opened the large back door.

The brunette started when she spotted Bilbo out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head and offered him a smile before she bent over and her top-half disappeared into the back of the car. "Curious, aren't you?" she said as she emerged holding a small box filled with knickknacks.

"I was just…" he cleared his throat. "Curious, yes. It is a rather strange carriage."

 _Let him keep believing that it's a carriage,_ she reminded herself _. After all, that'll keep him from questions I might not be able to answer._

Bilbo stepped up to the rear bumper and looked in. He hadn't seen the inside of the carriage from this angle yet. To the hobbit, the back of Marcelles carriage was spacious with enough room for two hobbits to sit if there were any seats, which there was none.

"However were you able to secure one of these?" he asked. "They certainly do not make these in the Shire."

Marcelle reached up and ran her hand down the large tail-light closest to her. Unintentionally, she murmured out-loud, "Definitely not in the Shire."

Bilbo's large ears caught what she said, and he looked up at her. "Where exactly are these made?" he queried. "They don't seem to be all that practical." He braced himself against the tail-light opposite to her and heaved against it. In response, the frame groaned but the car didn't budge. "How are horses supposed to pull this?"

Marcelle stepped back and loosely crossed her arms. "It doesn't need to be pulled by horses." The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them, and her cheeks turned a bright red when he peered up at her with a look of disbelief.

 _Here come the questions…_ she braced herself.

When he opened his mouth, though, he surprised her, and not in a good way. "Could you simply have forgotten where you came from? Or maybe that you have forgotten where you are truly from and have made up Canada, Alberta, and Rivercrossing?" He didn't believe what she was saying and deemed it too impossible.

His words made a bitter stone take shape in the pit of her stomach and she sent him an unimpressed glare. Quickly changing the subject, she turned and stalked to the driver's-side door. "Would you like to see how this works? How it can move without the aid of horses?"

Bilbo knew that he had said the wrong words and clicked his jaw shut. He shut the back door as fast as he was able before he rushed to the front passenger door. He yanked open the door and hopped inside in time to see Marcelle smile sadly in his direction.

Marcelle sat herself down and reached for the key in the ignition. Bilbo eyed the key with fascination as the young woman gripped it and turned it.

The oddest noise erupted from directly in front of them, nearly causing Bilbo to jump out of his skin. Keening like some sort of mythical monster—possibly a dragon with a bad case of the heaving-coughs—the sound of metal rubbing on metal and a tinny moan caused shivers to run up and down his spine and goosebumps to raise on his arms.

Marcelle let out a sad sigh as the engine died with a pitiful sputter, letting her know that the car must have run out of gas in somehow.

Purely out of nostalgia, she stroked the steering wheel and muttered under her breath, "Oh, Larkspur…is this truly your end?" Her car had been a gift to her from her parents when she graduated from high school. Even though the car was already ten years old when she got it, it had been nothing but faithful during the years she had used it.

Again, Bilbo's sharp ears picked up on her nearly-silent words and he asked her why she named her carriage _Larkspur_.

* * *

Within the first week of her stay at Bag End, she discovered the strange world that was a hobbit's life. Hobbits had a total of seven meals a day, and got up early just so they could accommodate them all within the hours that they were awake. She minded only a little bit, because her mother had tried to get her family to eat _six_ meals a day due to the eating plan they were on. According to her research, eating every three hours kept the metabolism going, leading to better digestion of what they ate.

For breakfast, she stuck to eggs and bacon and didn't touch a crumb of bread due to the fact that her body was sensitive to gluten, which was found in flour. For second breakfast, she allowed herself to have something along the lines of seed cakes when she learned that flour wasn't added and only a tad bit of sugar was used.

Learning to eat with a hobbit was an interesting experience.

Two breakfasts, 'elevensies', luncheon, afternoon tea, and then dinner and supper (which she referred to as 'first supper' and 'second supper')—Marcelle felt as if Bilbo must of have some sort of invisible rope tied to his ankle that made sure that he didn't stray too far from his home so he didn't miss a meal. She quickly started to feel that way herself as she became more and more assimilated into the hobbit culture.

Marcelle tried to make herself useful once she was feeling better. By the end of the first week, she decided that she would help Bilbo out a bit. But first she needed a change of clothes because what she was wearing was beginning to look tired, and quite frankly was starting to smell. With Bilbo's help she bought some bolts of fabric—with his money, which made her feel extremely guilty. She vowed to help him in return.

The fabric was mostly yellow, gold, green, and a variety of earthy colors. There was some blue fabric, that was thick, but it was more of a grey-blue than a true-blue. She was going to use it to make a spare jacket for when it began to snow and winter set in. She was going to keep her winter jacket for when it dipped to extremely frigid temperatures.

Marcelle had to admit that she wasn't much of a master with a needle and thread. The most experience she had with a needle was when she attempted to make a quilt by hand. She ended up abandoning it in the end.

"So how do you think you'll go about making your clothes?" Bilbo asked after they had stepped in through his green, round front door after getting the fabric. The tailor wasn't going to go and make a dress or two for a "Big Person"—as he called her.

Marcelle adjusted the fabric in her arms and sighed a little. "I'm not sure. I took a few sewing classes when I was little, and I think the only piece of clothing I made there was a shirt, and I ended up never wearing it," she admitted.

Bilbo told her that he believed his mother's sewing kit was in the storage room near the back of the house, so Marcelle ventured deeper into the hobbit-hole than she had ever gone before, after she dropped the fabric off in her room.

She searched for about ten minutes before she returned to the guest room with what she had sought for. Bilbo found her there two hours later, mulling over a game plan.

Bilbo stepped into the room and found a bolt of dark brown fabric laid out over the neatly-made bed. Another bolt of fabric, this one gold, was haphazardly stretched out on the dresser. A bolt of shiny green fabric was thrown onto the desk, yet unraveled. Marcelle stood over the bed and the brown fabric with one of his mother's sewing books open in her hands.

"How is it coming?" he asked.

Marcelle looked up at him and gave him a short smile. "Fine. I think?" she read over something in the book again. "I'm trying to figure out how to make a dress. In the end, I hope to make a dress, a pair of pants, a shirt, and a couple waistcoats." She glanced over at the bolt of thick blue fabric. "Oh, and a winter coat, since winter is almost upon us."

"I see…" Bilbo responded. "Um…do you think you will have enough?"

Marcelle shrugged. "Hopefully, I will."

That night, at first supper, she told him that she had managed to cut out the dress and had begun to sew it together. She thought it was looking rather good so far.

She worked on sewing her new clothes for the next two weeks, and in the end they turned out rather well thanks to Bilbo's mother's books. The dress didn't look as professional as it would have if it was made by a professional, but it would serve its purpose in the end.

The shirt was rather simple, and it was done within a day, but the waistcoats took longer because she didn't want to mess up on them. She trembled as she worked, nervous that she would screw up. She did mess up a bit on the yellow one, but managed to learn from her mistakes when she did the green one.

Once she was done making her clothes, she vowed not to touch a needle for a very long time. And her abused fingers agreed with her.

* * *

"I think you did a fine job," Bilbo told her the morning she emerged from the guest room wearing some of her new clothes. She had worn the shirt, which was white, and had put the dress on over it because the front went only as high as the top of her abdomen and buttoned up there. She had decided to wear her yellow waistcoat that day, and she buttoned it up almost all the way.

They went for a simple walk that day, and they talked. Marcelle felt like they were going to be good friends someday, and she figured that she could grow to like it there, in Hobbiton, even though the hobbits did not trust her because she was one of the Big People; and that she felt she stuck out like a sore thumb since she was the tallest person in the immediate fifty square kilometers.

"I really miss my family, Bilbo," she found herself telling him as they walked along the bank of the river that ran along the outskirts of the quaint little town.

"I know," he said simply.

She crossed her arms in front of her. "I don't know what I did to deserve winding up here, and I don't know if I'll ever find out. That thought gives me a very… _empty_ sensation."

"I think I understand," Bilbo told her as they stopped to look out at the water. "I felt very empty when I lost my parents."

Marcelle sent a small sad smile Bilbo's way before returning her attention to the river. It was a calm river, the current wasn't very fast. It would make for a nice little boat ride with a picnic.

"The strange thing is," she said, careful not to confuse her friend with her words, some of which were probably not in the lexicon he knew, "when I first woke up here, I thought I was dreaming. Because I hit my head so hard, I thought I was unconscious and just dreaming."

Bilbo watched her as her eyes grew distant. "What do you think now?" he asked, cautious.

Marcelle blinked, bringing herself back to the present. She shook her head, sending the sad thoughts away before they could drag her down further. "I don't know," she ended up saying again. "I can't help but think that this is too real to be a dream. I would know if it was a dream…and this is not a dream."

The thought of this not being a dream drove the dagger that was already in her heart even deeper.

* * *

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Next chapter, it will get a little exciting, possibly with pre-journey events. The schedule hasn't changed, so please stay tuned for Chapter 4! :3**

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 **RedBear5** **:** I'm glad you enjoyed it :) That scene was one of my favourites to write.

 **duchesseduo:** Thank you! :D

 **icanhascamaro:** I hope I didn't disappoint with the Bilbo's closer 'inspection' of the car. Unfortunately, I don't think the car is going to run ever again and might just end up as a sad Shire relic. An axle broke, and a fuel line was severed when she crashed into Bilbo's hill. Thanks for the review!


	4. Warnings That Make You Homesick

**Merry Christmas, everyone! I come bearing a new chapter that I hope is a bit more interesting than what you guys have been getting—and for that, I apologise, but it's a necessary evil.**

 **When I think about it, The first three chapters of SWBSW** ** _could_** **have been combined into one chapter, but it would have been a** ** _HUGE_** **chapter that might have been a little daunting and it would have looked a little unbalanced compared to the chapters that would follow :3**

 **I hope you guys have a very merry Christmas!**

 **Disclaimer:** _AndromedaAI does not own The Hobbit or anything related to Middle-Earth. I do not own Bilbo Baggins, the Shire (though I tried to make a version of it called the 'Clydesdale' when I was twelve), or anything else that is mentioned. That all belongs to Tolkien. I only own Marcelle T. Bowman and her family._

* * *

4 - **Warnings That Make You Homesick** \- 4

Soon, a month had passed, and Marcelle found herself slowly beginning to lose hope.

She realized that Hobbiton—the Shire, even—was so far removed from the rest of this place called Middle-Earth that hardly anything ever happened. Day in and day out the same things seemed to occur. Hobbits got up and went to work or did their chores and tended to their animals or their gardens or their fields, they had their seven meals a day, did whatever they wanted to in their free time, and then went to bed at night. Marcelle watched this over and over, and couldn't help but wonder what her family was doing.

Did Mitchell graduate and get that Ph.D. that he wanted? Did Jason stay on the basketball team after he hurt his fingers? _How are Mom's knees? Is Dad still working for that trucking company? Did they go through with that plan to get that condo down in Banff?_ There were so many questions, and none of them could be answered. It made her so frustrated.

Marcelle took to taking walks before first breakfast every morning in order to use up some of the pent-up energy she had inside. She would make a circuit of Hobbiton, power-walking as fast as she could go the whole time. She was alone with her thoughts when she walked, and sometimes she would focus on them so hard that she would find herself back on Bilbo's doorstep before she even realized that she had started walking.

The gossip that passed between Bilbo's neighbors irked her as well. On her walks, she could hear them talking amongst each other because they didn't even take the effort to lower their voices. Some hobbits believed that she was some distant relative of Bilbo's, some thought Bilbo had adopted her, while most believed that she was secretly Bilbo's lover and that she was doing some…well…very inappropriate things with him.

It made her so angry that people wouldn't keep their noses out of other people's business.

* * *

Even here, she found she could not accomplish one thing. Her room still, somehow, managed to become messy when she wasn't looking, and she had to tidy it up so that Bilbo wouldn't find out that she was careless enough to let things get dysfunctional.

It was during this that she found something that felt like a strike to the face.

She was unloading one of the plastic Walmart bags she had brought from her car and a book slid out and fell to the floor. She quickly set the bag down on the dresser and bent down to pick it up. She hesitated when she saw the cover of the book.

The cover was orange, and the image of a large red dragon with green wings lying on a pile of treasure took up most it. In large green letters, it proclaimed: _The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien_.

Slowly, Marcelle lowered herself to her knees and reached down with one hand. Part of her didn't want her to pick it up, but it was like she couldn't resist the urge to do so. She picked it up and she opened it to the first page.

 _'_ _In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.'_

Marcelle nearly dropped the book, but she didn't. Instead, she slammed it shut again as she thought back to how it had gotten into that bag.

She had stuffed her copy of _The Hobbit_ into the shopping bag after she had found it lying in the back of her car, after she had finished shopping, where it could get trampled on and the pages bent. She had figured her brother had left it there after she had let him borrow it when she drove him to the next town over for a dentist appointment.

But why had she forgotten about it? She used to love reading _The Hobbit_ —she used to read it over and over and over it again. She would barely finish it before she would start at the beginning again. So why had she not recognised the names 'Shire', 'Hobbiton', and 'Bilbo Baggins'?

She knew the answer. Life had gotten in the way. She hadn't read _The Hobbit_ since she was fourteen when her mother told her she had to stop focusing on what was fantasy and focus on reality. She had listened, focused on school and real life, and had forgotten about the adventures she had when she read a good book. In _The Hobbit_ , she had been able to go on an adventure as a hobbit, where she placed herself in Bilbo's hairy feet and found the One Ring in the depths of the Misty Mountains. Where she traveled to the Lonely Mountain and showered the dragon Smaug with made-up praises as she looked for the Arkenstone.

Right there, her thoughts came to a grinding halt and her eyes widened. _Bilbo's going to go on an adventure… but when?_

Her thoughts didn't last for long before a large crash and the sound of Bilbo letting out a curse ripped them from her. She quickly got up and shoved the book under the mattress of the bed before she rushed out of the guest bedroom and made a bee-line to the kitchen.

"Bilbo, are you alright?" she called as she ran into the kitchen.

Bilbo waved his hang erratically as she came into the room, "Wait—stop! I dropped the milk jar and there are pieces of glass everywhere!"

Marcelle slid to a stop, glad that she had good reflexes while also wishing that she had worn her boots inside like Bilbo had suggested (he didn't mind the thought of boots tramping through his home for some reason).

"What about you?" she asked. "What if you cut your feet on the glass?"

"Do not worry about me, Marcelle, I've got it all under control," he said seriously. "The soles of my feet are as thick as shoe-soles, the glass will not be able to hurt me." He offered her a small smile. "Why don't you go and get a new jar of milk from the market?"

Slowly, Marcelle nodded. She turned and walked into the foyer and shoved her feet into her purple boots before she zipped them up. She picked up the shopping basket sitting by the door before she stepped outside. Pulling the door gently closed behind her, she walked out through the gate and took the path down to the market.

The walk down to the market was not long, but it was not long enough. The fresh air helped her think and get over what had just happened. She had just discovered one of the last real ties that she had to her world, her life, and it felt like it had recoiled and slammed into her so hard that it made her want to cry. She had become friends with Bilbo Baggins— _Bilbo Baggins_ , the protagonist of _The Hobbit_ , and soon, someday, he was going to go on an adventure.

She knew that Bilbo hadn't gone on the adventure yet, _Sting_ wasn't hanging over the fireplace in his sitting room.

Once she got to the marketplace, she made her way along the stalls until she made it to the one that belonged to Farmer Dill Dogwood.

"Hello, Farmer Dogwood," Marcelle greeted as she stepped up to his stall.

Dogwood tipped his hat to her. "Well, good morning, Miss Bowman!" he returned cheerfully. Dogwood was one of the few hobbits that seemed to be alright with her presence in Hobbiton, and she liked him. "What can I do for you? Does Bilbo need another round of cheese?"

Marcelle shook her head with a smiled. "Oh no, Farmer Dogwood," she said. "Bilbo just dropped the jar of milk we had, so we need some more."

She quickly picked up a new jar of milk and put it into the basket. After a little persuasion on Dogwood's part, she also put a stick of goat cheese in the basket. She quickly paid him and left before he could persuade her to buy anything else.

 _I'm not supposed to be here,_ she told herself as she began to walk back to Bag End. _I'm not in the book. Why am I here if I'm not in the book?_

"You appear as though you are lost, daughter of Men." The sudden sounding of a man's voice made her freeze in surprise. She turned and looked in the direction of the voice's source, and saw a tall man standing in the shadow of a store. He was very tall, around the same height as her brother, Mitchell.

"P-pardon?" she stuttered. It was a shock to see someone so tall in Hobbiton. She hadn't caught sight of any humans other than herself since she came to live amongst the hobbits.

Slowly, the man stepped out into the light. "You appear lost," he repeated once she was able to see him fully.

He had short black hair reminiscent of a military cut that had been allowed to grow out a few inches. His skin was pale, almost unnaturally so, being a few shades paler—at least—than her own. He looked like someone who spent all his time inside, like herself—back before she came to the Shire. His ethereal eyes were gold in colour; and he was wearing a red jacket and black pants. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet together.

Marcelle gripped the handle of the basket tightly, and mentally prepared herself to run. "What do you want?" she had never felt all that comfortable being around men she didn't know.

The man brought his right hand up and cupped it over his heart, pretending as if he was hurt by her words. "I merely stated that you appear lost, milady," he answered. He looked her in the eye with those strange eyes of his and he took a step closer. Marcelle missed it, for she could not break eye-contact.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins as her instincts told her not to look away lest he strike when she was not looking. There was something about the man that she felt was not right, not…natural, to put it simply. "And if I was lost?" she was now gripping the basket's handle with both hands so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "Which I'm _not_ , thank you."

Another step closer. "You _are_ lost, my lady, and are far, _far_ , from home," he said. The way he said it sent chills running up and down her spine. He was so tall, and he was now too close—now she understood how Bilbo must feel with her around. The man was a few feet away, and yet she had to crane her head back in order to look him in the eye. "I felt it when you arrived—it was hard to miss your arrival by its intensity." he let out a low chuckle.

Marcelle narrowed her eyes and steeled her resolve, determined to not allow him intimidate her even though her heart was galloping away in her chest like a wild mustang. "I crashed into the side of a _hill_. My entrance into this place wasn't all that 'intense' as you say." _Maybe I was wrong about this not being a dream,_ she mused. The way the man said he felt her enter into here—wherever _here_ was, wherever Middle-Earth was, for that matter, raised goosebumps on her arms. _If this isn't a dream, then it must be a nightmare._

"It was intense enough for me to sense, and that means that others have sensed you as well," the man proclaimed, his tone dropping to ominous levels as he informed her that he was not the only one who knew that she was there. "There are powers out there that stronger than I am, and they know where you have come from."

At that, her heart jumped to her throat and her eyes flew open wide. A cunning smile tugged at the corner of the man's mouth and she knew that he knew that she understood what he had just told her.

There were many who were probably powerful enough to sense subtle changes in the reality that surrounded Middle-Earth—but there was only _one_ that she felt was powerful enough to know _exactly where_ she came from. And she had an inkling that he would want to know _how_ she had gotten here.

When she grew up reading _The Hobbit_ , he was known simply as "the Necromancer", but if she remembered correctly, he was mentioned only once in the entirety of the novel when Gandalf mentioned visiting Thorin's father, Thrain, where he was imprisoned.

But the Necromancer had a name, one she didn't discover until she watched the _Lord of the Rings_ (she never made it through the books, unfortunately). Sauron. His name was Sauron and he had the power to bend the hearts of those around him who did not have the will the resist the temptation of the power of darkness that came with siding with him.

 _Is that what he's saying? That Sauron knows I'm here?_ her breath caught in her throat. _Does he know that I know what will happen?_

"Do you know where I came from?" she asked him shakily.

"No," he answered almost immediately. "That was one thing I could not sense."

Marcelle frowned. She was done talking with this man, and she had to get the milk back to Bag End before it spoiled. "Who _are_ you?" she demanded.

That cunning smirk was larger than ever as he answered her. "I am merely one who is concerned. You will find out who I am soon enough." And with that, he walked off, and disappeared around a the corner of a nearby shop.

* * *

Marcelle practically sprinted all the way back to Bag End. She burst in through the front door and stopped in the foyer to catch her breath.

Once her breath was fairly regular, she called, "I'm back with the milk, Bilbo!"

There was a beat of silence before she heard him call back, "I'm in the sitting room!"

Marcelle went to the icebox, located in Bilbo's main pantry, where she set the milk down amongst the slabs of ice before she shut the lid and continued on to the sitting room. She sat herself down in one of the chairs by the fire and looked over to where Bilbo was sitting in the chair across from her, reading a book.

She was there for several minutes before he lowered the book and gazed at her. "So, how was it?" he asked.

Marcelle decided in the blink of an eye to not trouble him with the encounter she had with the strange human man who had caught her off guard. "It was good, as good as fetching milk from the market can be, that is."

Bilbo chuckled at her answer and went back to reading the book. Marcelle smiled a little, glad that he had accepted the little lie she had just fed him. She hated having to lie to him since he had been so nice and friendly and helpful to her, but she didn't want to worry him about anything.

She just hoped that that was the last time she ever saw that mysterious man, though something in her told her that wasn't going to be the case.

* * *

 **Notes about this chapter:**

 **Now, if you guys haven't chucked bricks at me yet, I would like to explain a few things in this chapter so it doesn't quite make it look like my story has fallen into another cliche.**

 **1) From my "adventures" through the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit wiki, I've discovered that Tolkien wrote about Middle-Earth and created his stories as pseudo-fairytales for England—or ancient history that was lost to time. In this story, this is the case. The 21** **st** **Century Marcelle comes from is not** **our** **21** **st** **Century. Marcelle hails from the Seventh/Eighth Age of Arda, but humanity has forgotten the planet is called Arda and they call it "Earth" now. (I hope this makes sense?)**

 **2) Marcelle is not a walking encyclopedia—when she was younger, like described in this chapter, she enjoyed reading** ** _The Hobbit_** **and she enjoyed watching the** ** _Lord of the Rings_** **movies, but outside of that, she knows hardly anything about Middle-Earth. She hasn't read** ** _The Silmarillion_** **, or** ** _The Lost Tales_** **, either. On another note, she also doesn't know how to fix her car, so its doomed to rust and become a relic to be dug up by an archeologist in the future, lol.**

 **3) "Milady/my lady" – the strange man addressed Marcelle as so because she is different and a foreigner. Normally, she wouldn't have been addressed as such because Marcelle is not royalty or rich to the point that people would feel inclined to address her with the title. When I had him say it, I had it say it in way that he was saying it as if to secretly mock her. (again, I hope that makes sense).**


	5. A Life Without Hope is No Life At All

**I'm back with another chapter! And it's a long one, wow. It just kept coming and coming and the end didn't let itself be known until I had soared past 6,000 words!**

 **How was Christmas for you guys? I hope you enjoyed it! I kind of wish it would never end…but then that would mean that the snow would never leave, lol.**

 **I just wanted to add another note, one that I think I forgot to mention at the end of the last chapter. Marcelle has not watched the Hobbit movies, she has only read the book, so she'll be in for a big surprise when she goes on the journey (** ** _if_** **she gets to go on the journey).**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I hope you have a happy New Year (or Yuletide, if you're a hobbit)!**

* * *

5 – **A Life Without Hope is No Life At All** – 5

Marcelle opened her eyes to find herself lying down on a familiar bed that she had not curled up on for what seemed like eternity. Quickly, she shot up into a sitting position and scanned her surroundings with wide eyes. The book that had been in her hands slipped from her fingers and fell over the side of the bed as she tried to take in her surroundings.

The loud slap created by the book hitting the floor echoed about the room, the sound loud and abrasive. She knew this room—it was her room. Not the guest room back—back— where? Nevermind. No, this was her room, back in her family's house.

Under her, her favourite blue, white, and black quilt was draped over her bed, and the grey and white rug on the floor, white lacy curtains hanging over her window, and the long full-body mirror hanging on the back of her door were all where she had left them when she went to work on that fateful day. Her cell phone with its white and black lacy cover rested screen-down on her oak side-table, its camera staring up at the ceiling sightlessly beside her pink glass-jar Ikea lamp.

Everything was eerily the same as she had left it, as if she had hardly been in her room at all. Which was preposterous! She was in her room every day, her whole life practically took place in her room when she wasn't at work and managed to get some time to herself.

 _I never left and went_ anywhere _,_ she thought, rubbing a hand down her face as she mentally smacked herself. _I've been here every day ever since I slid off the road and crashed into that tree._ She could remember it clearly as if it had only happened a few hours before, even though it had been over a month since it happened and she had gotten pretty banged up.

She had been going around that corner and her Honda had slid off the road. There was a large tree that had grown up out of the ditch and she had crashed into it. The engine of her much-loved little car had caved in, like a massive accordion, leaving the vehicle no more useful than a collection of spare parts. She was without a car, and with her family's financial situation, it didn't look like she was going to get any help getting a new one. She couldn't spare any of the money she had saved up for a new one because she needed that to get an apartment where she was going to go to college.

She was hooped. It looked like she was just going to have to walk everywhere. Fortunately, the town located next to the college was small, and walking would do her some good.

A quick glance down at herself had her eyeing herself in disapproval once again. Again, she felt that she was fighting a losing battle with her polycystic ovarian syndrome and the eating plan her mother had her and the family on. The syndrome made it harder to lose the weight she had, and with the fact that she was blasted with advertisements and temptations that urged her to give up with pictures of milk chocolate and Big Macs, she couldn't help but feel depressed. It made her yearn for something off the grid. Something familiar—

But what? She quickly gave it up, she couldn't remember. She and her family lived out of town on a farm, and if they wanted to be any more secluded they would have gotten solar panels. But, of course, they couldn't afford that either.

The book that now lay on her floor begged for her to pick it up. She stood to her feet and picked it up, and allowed herself to gaze down at its cover before she went and put it on the white bookshelf that sat across the room from her bed. The orange cover and the green letters and the archaic image of a red dragon seemingly screamed at her, and she couldn't help but wrinkle her nose.

If she hadn't read if for a school project when she was younger, she probably never would have picked up the book and read it—just because of the cover. It was terrifying in its ways of gaudiness.

But a little smile appeared on her lips because she _loved_ the story. She loved the adventure. That was why she liked the book, even though she hadn't had a chance to read it for a while.

Wait—wasn't she just reading it? She had it open and in her hands before she sat up and accidently dropped it. A groan left her as she quickly stood it up on the shelf under the one holding her jewellery box.

She took a moment to contemplate what she should do next, eying the basket filled with yarn balls and knitting needles sitting next to her side table before spotting the cross-stitching sitting on the shelf at shoulder-height on the bookshelf adjacent to the one she had just put the book on. It was next to her Pop! vinyl Elsa and Anna figures and the decorative mirror.

Marcelle stepped up to the bookshelf and peered into the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her with all-too familiar hazel eyes. She took in her pale skin, her shoulder-length brown hair—she remembered with a fond smile how it only went to her chin before the crash. She had to spit some out of her mouth after she crashed into the tree. Her round face appeared rounder than she would have liked, and something in her balked at the sight of her reflection. It told her that something wasn't right, that she was missing something, but then she just shook it off as paranoia. She had been dreaming a lot lately, and her dreams often bled into her life after she awoke, making it hard to distinguish reality from dreams.

The dreams were too vivid—as if they were lucid dreams—and they would follow her after she woke up so it took almost ten minutes after she opened her eyes to realize that it was just a dream. She hadn't told her mother yet, the last thing she needed her mother to do was to send her to a therapist. Her mother always complained that Marcelle spent too much time in the realm of fantasy when she read so much.

Marcelle often wished she had a pointier chin or a longer face. Her round face made it hard to figure out nice hairstyles that were quick and easy when her hair hung down past her shoulders. All she could figure out was a hairband to provide body to the top of her head with a braid, because ponytails were too bland and leaving her hair down would just pull the hairband back, leaving her hair plastered to the top of her head.

She wasn't one to care much about how she looked, so she hated how her mother made such a fuss about her hair.

Forcefully, she allowed herself to dwell on other things, her eyes never leaving her reflection. On the wall behind her, she took in the sight of two photos that she had framed and hung on her wall. One was of her and her horse, Raina, and the other was one her father had taken of her in the middle of a fencing match.

Marcelle had never competed in fencing professionally, and she only won less than half of all matches she went into during the years she participated. With a fond smile, she recalled how she had beaten the best member of the fencing 'club' when she had gone to the school gym where it was held feeling particularly angry and stressed with life.

Raina's familiar whinny drew Marcelle to look out her bedroom window. The blue roan mare stood out in the pasture, staring off in the direction of the neighbors, and was probably attempting to communicate with their horses. With her bedroom window open, Marcelle couldn't resist the urge to call out to her horse. "Hello, Raina!"

The mare glanced in her rider's general direction before returning her attention to the neighbor's horses.

 _Why does it feel like I've missed her for ages even though I go and see her every morning?_ Marcelle asked herself, feeling a touch discomfited.

She reached up and ran a hand down her face before she returned her attention to the mirror, an object she couldn't seem to tear her attention from.

But when she looked into the mirror again, she let out a startled scream. She clamped a hand over her mouth and prayed feverishly that nobody had heard her. In the mirror, instead of her reflection being there, there was the man she had met outside of the market— the market _where_?

She knew his face but her mind withheld the information she needed to piece it all together. Gold eyes gleamed with hidden pride and a smirk stretched his lips. His whole being radiated power, arrogance, and something else her useless mind could not form a word for.

Another scream blasted at the palm of her hand when a hand suddenly leapt from the mirror—the man's hand. His long fingers wrapped around her throat and pulled her closer.

 _"_ _There are powers out there that stronger than I am, and they know where you have come from."_ she didn't recognise the deep voice, but somehow she knew it belonged to the man in the mirror.

"Let go, please let go," she whispered desperately.

The man's smirk transformed into a teeth-baring grin, and Marcelle couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the two rows of white, pointed teeth that looked foreign in such a human mouth. "I am not the one you should be afraid of," the man warned before his other hand suddenly came forth from the depths of the mirror and closed down over her face.

Marcelle suddenly found herself shooting up into a sitting position, sweat pouring down her face and soaking her nightclothes. She was sure she had screamed, and her throat was raw, and her heart thundered away in her chest as if she had been spooked into running a five-mile marathon non-stop. Eyes wide and wild, she frantically searched the room for any sign of the man, but after a few moments she saw that she was back in the guestroom at Bag End.

It took her several minutes before her breathing returned to normal and for her heart to stop beating as if it wanted to win the Kentucky Derby. She quickly lit a candle and slipped her glasses on before she performed a thorough sweep of the room, just to make sure that was alone.

In all her years, she couldn't quite remember experiencing such a vivid and confusing dream. She sat back down on her bed and cradled the candle-holder in both of her hands.

For a moment, in her dream, she believed that the crash she had been in had been nothing more than a "simple" crash, and she had forgotten where she truly was in reality. But what had been the most unsettling—no, disturbing event in that dream was when she saw the man she met in the market in the dream.

With a shudder, she set the candleholder on the side table and tucked herself in again. But she did not blow out the candle, and she ended up remaining awake the rest of the night.

* * *

Her encounter with the strange man and, unfortunately, the dream hardly left her over the months afterwards, and it served only to fill her brain with more things to worry about and more things to think about.

As the trees became bare and the ground became frosty at night, Marcelle took to writing her thoughts down in hopes of emptying her mind of them. She could remember doing so when she was younger, when she was more troubled and felt God was not listening to her when she prayed for her mother's well-being. It helped her to cope and relieve the burden that had seemed to settle on her heart. Much like it had now.

Two months after her encounter with the man, she went to Hobbiton's stationary shop and bought herself a leather-bound notebook, a finely-sharpened quill, and a small jar of black ink. She took them home, and set them down on the desk.

Marcelle sat down at the desk and cleared some space. She unplugged her phone from where it was charging with the help of the solar panel her father had given her for her nineteenth birthday, and consulted the date.

Her father didn't want her to go anywhere without a ridiculous amount of precautions stocked in the car. Broke down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and your phone's about to die? Her father made sure she had a solar panel to charge it with. Marcelle was thankful it hadn't broken in the crash. Other 'precautions' weren't so lucky.

Like the flare gun—its firing mechanism broke. And the can of bear spray exploded.

Having changed the date to something that resembled the day and day of the month after she asked Bilbo about it, she saw that it was the fifteenth of December, ten days before Yuletide. According to Bilbo, she had been found after midnight on September the 24th, and she had been in his company for almost three months.

It had been a while since she had used any form of quill, the last time being when her mother tried to force her to do a calligraphy class, but she plunged right in, knowing that it was only going to be her who read this. So what if it was messy at first?

 _December 20_ _th_ _, year unknown, Bag End, Hobbiton, the Shire, 'Middle-Earth'._

 _I've been in the company of one hobbit, named Bilbo Baggins, for the last 86 days after my car slid off the road on my way home. From what I remember, my car raced down the hill, almost completely out of control, until I crashed into the side of a hill, which turned out to be the side of Bilbo's hill, which houses his hobbit-hole._

 _Bilbo told me that I was out for the duration of the day after he found me, and woke the morning after. I've been trying to be helpful to him since I have come to stay with him, and I think he enjoys my company._

 _Mr. Bilbo Baggins is a small little man with curly chestnut hair and dark—probably brown—eyes. He's about a head shorter than my shoulder, and his house had been built to accommodate his height and the heights of other hobbits, and not humans or anyone as tall as humans. Once in a while, I forget that the ceiling drops down in the corners of some of the rooms and I bang my forehead against them._

 _I still can't get over how short the bed I sleep in is! On the morning I first woke up here, I woke with my legs practically hanging off the end of the bed. Every night I have to go through what feels like a ritual in order to find a way to lie comfortably in that bed. Don't get me wrong, the bed is wonderfully comfortable, but the feeling of my legs being bent more than normal can stimulate me, which annoys me to no end._

 _Not that long ago—I can't remember the exact date…_

She went on to describe her encounter with that man outside the market. She tried to record it with every detail, and in the end she slammed the book shut and stuffed it into the desk drawer. She then shrugged on her handmade coat and went out to the foyer.

After she stepped through the front door, Marcelle stood a few feet from it and simply gazed out at hills of Hobbiton as she thought. Sometimes, she felt safest deep within the recesses of her mind, where she was alone with figments of her imagination. She was one of those people who were said "to live in their heads".

 _I miss you Mom…Dad… I miss you Mitchell…Jason_ , she thought. _How far away are they from me?_ _Will I ever see them again?_ Often Marcelle found herself wishing that she could talk to someone who had the ability to look _further_ than what the normal mortal could see. She flashed back to a memory she had of when in the _Lord of the Rings_ , Frodo looked into the basin in Lórien…or was it Lothlórien?—and saw what could be. Marcelle felt she would never have the chance to travel to such a place, and she didn't want to risk never finding a way home. And the earth was crawling with multitudes of unsavoury creatures, some of them which she might just run into if she followed Bilbo on his adventure.

The round door opened behind her and her hobbit friend stepped out into the cold outdoors. "Marcelle? What are you doing outside?" Bilbo asked. "You'll catch a cold if you continue to stand out here!"

"I'm merely thinking, Bilbo," she told him as she took in the snow-covered hills and houses.

Bilbo stepped up beside her, his hairy feet sinking into the ankle-deep snow. "What are you thinking about?"

She felt his eyes on her, boring into her right temple. "I don't to trouble you with it," she said.

The hobbit continued to look hard at her. He stared at her as hard as he could, it seemed. And then a queer little look of realization appeared on his face. "It's still bothering you, isn't it?"

Marcelle blinked and looked down at him. "What…?"

"You miss your family terribly, I get that," he empathised. "But, are you going to let it eat at you until you cannot stand it any longer?"

Her chest tightened at his words. "I-I _don't_ want to forget about them. Ever."

"You don't have to _forget_ about them!"

Her breath caught in her throat. "Are…" she began hesitantly. "Are you saying…I should stop _hoping_ to go back? To find a way?" She turned to face him fully.

They stared at each other, and for a long time they didn't say anything. Marcelle hoped that Bilbo would say something in his defence, to explain why he was driving the dagger deeper into her heart with his words. He didn't believe that she could have come from somewhere _else_ , somewhere that wasn't Middle-Earth.

So she opened her mouth. "A life without hope is no life at all," she quavered quietly.

She saw the glimmer of understanding that began to shimmer in the depths of his dark eyes when he heard her words. _This is my friend, my good friend, and he is only worried about you. He doesn't want you to suffer anymore,_ she told herself, realization suddenly racing through her. _I would probably feel the same if I was in his place._ She could see it in his eyes that he was thinking the same.

It was then that it clicked. Bilbo Baggins was the closest thing she'd probably ever consider close to being family here in Middle-Earth, short of her falling in love with someone and then marrying them. He had taken her in, made sure she was well fed and had clothes before the winter set in. Though he was thirty years older than her, to her he felt like he was a brother—an older brother—only a few years older than she.

What Bilbo had been trying to tell her was that… from what she could see… that he was willing to be her family if she never went back to Earth.

"Bilbo," she said suddenly, "what could I have ever done without you?"

* * *

When she was first introduced to _The Hobbit_ as a child, her mother read it to her out loud so that she could do a book report about it. Afterwards, she fell in love with the characters within and they soon became some of the first residents of the world contained within her head.

Back then, she never knew she would _actually_ land in Hobbiton and meet Bilbo in person.

Of course, she had a wild imagination that seemed to spring up suddenly out of nowhere after she turned twelve years old. Somehow, one day, she convinced herself, after giving up on the dreams of ever becoming one of Santa's elves, that God was going to one day pick her up and deposit her somewhere else so that she could go on an adventure she knew she could never have on Earth.

But that never happened and eventually her mother told her to grow up and get her head out of the clouds. Feeling something akin to how Amy Pond did when she waited for the Doctor when she was a child, and he never came until she was an adult, Marcelle grew up and her imagination died somewhat. She stopped dreaming of ever going on an adventure, of ever going and meeting hobbits, stopped reading _that particular book_ , and concentrated on filling her mind with information from school. She settled into the life she had, content to stay at home and not socialize much outside her immediate family.

And now that she thought about it, it reminded her of one certain individual.

Now that she was here, with Bilbo and living in a town inhabited by hobbits, Marcelle began to wish that she never had wished to go on an adventure. She wished that she hadn't wished because she began to feel that because she did she was now here, separated from her family.

 _I will get back to them_ , she assured herself. _I will get back to them, and I will make sure they know that I love them desperately._

She tried to hold onto hope, but she couldn't help but feel as if it was slipping through her fingers like sand.

* * *

Marcelle opened the door and stepped out into the fresh spring air. She allowed herself a small smile and she inhaled deeply, letting the fresh air fill her lungs. She let out all the air and felt relief wash over her.

The smell of pipe tobacco reached her nose, and she turned to look at her friend, who sat on his bench to the immediate left of the round green door, smoking on his long wooden pipe. She watched as he blew out a decent-sized smoke ring, which floated over Bilbo's woven wood fence and out over the town, where it dissipated.

Quickly, she crossed in front of him and sat herself gently down beside him. From there, she watched as Bilbo sat there in his yellow waistcoat, white long-sleeved shirt, seafoam tie, and brown trousers, possibly contemplating life. She watched him blow out another smoke ring, and it drifted away as well but did not make it as far as the first.

"Bilbo? May I have a puff?" she asked, immediately feeling guilty for imposing on his peace. Her friend looked up at her in surprise, something in which she felt as well at what she said.

"Well, this is most peculiar," he admitted after a moment. "I thought you said you abhorred the very thought of putting a pipe to your lips. You said that the smoke would poison your innards and shorten your life."

Marcelle allowed a small smile that didn't reach her hazel eyes, which looked positively green due to the fresh green grass that surrounded them and filled his garden. He stared into her eyes in hopes of finding out what she was thinking, but she had carefully masked anything that would have given what she was feeling away. It was a particular skill Marcelle arrived with, though she often wasn't the best at it.

After a moment's more pause, Bilbo handed the pipe over to the young woman. He watched as she took the pipe and cradled it in the palm of her right hand. Her slender fingers curled and she pressed the pads against the outer walls of the bowl before she lifted the mouthpiece to her mouth.

He watched as she drew in a deep breath and filled her lungs with the smoke. She pulled the pipe away from her lips and let out a short cough before blowing out the smoke in a thin stream. The smoke escaped her and she let out a small sigh. She seemed to visibly relax.

"Feel better?" Bilbo asked as she handed him his pipe back.

The brunette nodded before letting out another short cough. "It brought back memories of home, Mr. Baggins. The air here is much cleaner than it is where I come from," she told him wistfully. "The air is filled with smog where I'm from, though it's better in the country, and feeling the smoke in my lungs allowed me to feel as if I was sitting by the fireplace in my family's living—um, sitting room." She cleared her throat and looked down at her friend. "What is that stuff, anyway?"

Bilbo smiled a bit at his friend's odd words. "It's Old Toby, some of the best 'stuff' you can get anywhere. I smoke it because it clears my head and helps me think," he told her, answering her next question before she even had a chance to voice it.

Marcelle straightened her posture and smiled at him again before turning her attention out to the rolling hills of Hobbiton. Bilbo looked her over and took note that she was starting to look a bit on the lean side, clearly telling him that her thoughts were eating at her. She was skipping meals and the rose-hued waistcoat she was wearing now looked loose on her form even though she had just made it the month before. Her cheekbones were more pronounced, and she had bags under her eyes.

It appeared that, that morning, she had tried to make herself look pretty, tried to hide the fact that she probably noticed that she looked like a shadow of her former self. Her rich brown hair had been done up in a twist, and was held together with the hairpin he had given her for Yuletide. The head of the blue jay pinhead peeked out from between the strands of her hair like a bird resting in its nest.

The pupils of her eyes constricted slightly as they developed a far-off look, telling him that she had retreated into her head. Bilbo looked out over the hills and leaned back on the bench as he let himself drift back to the peace he had before. He put the mouthpiece of his pipe back into his mouth. Drawing in a breath, he let the smoke rest inside him for a moment before he blew out another large smoke ring.

Marcelle followed the smoke ring with her eyes before a new presence made itself known. A tall man clad in grey stepped up to the fence, and Bilbo's smoke ring suddenly changed its form into that of a butterfly. Marcelle blinked in surprise as she watched it turn and flutter back to Bilbo, where it tried to alight on his nose but promptly exploded in a small puff.

Bilbo's blinked rapidly and let out a tiny cough. Opening his eyes he looked up at the tall man standing at the fence.

Marcelle looked up at the man and took in his grey robes, wide-brimmed, blue pointed hat, and his long white hair and beard. From under the brim she could see a pair of pale blue eyes twinkling with humour. She smiled as her mind sparked with recognition.

Bilbo leaned forward with a look of slight uncertainty. Pulling his pipe away from the vicinity of his mouth, he greeted, "Good morning."

The old man braced himself lightly against his tall wooden staff and tilted his head to the side. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly, drawing out his words only slightly. "Do you mean to wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not?" he continued, speaking incredibly quick. "Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel _good_ this particular morning; …or are you simply stating that it is a morning to be good on?"

Marcelle blinked again, surprised at how fast the words had spilled from his mouth. A quick glance at Bilbo told her that he didn't quite know how to answer the man's questions.

"All of them at once, I suppose," Bilbo replied, gesturing with his pipe.

"I say that it is a good morning because the sun rose and the flowers are in full bloom," Marcelle inputted.

The man glanced to her before scrutinizing Bilbo with a grim hum.

The way the man looked at Bilbo made him very uncomfortable. He turned slightly, as if to get up from the bench, before he stopped and turned back to the man. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"That remains to be seen," the stranger replied. "I am looking for someone to share in an adventure." His bushy eyebrows rose, nearly disappearing under his hat.

Bilbo gaped for a moment and once again his pipe's mouthpiece flicked away. "An adventure?" he was taken aback. "No, I don't imagine anyone west of _Bree_ would have much interest in adventures." He got to his feet, and he went on as he walked over to his mailbox, "Nasty, disturbing…uncomfortable things." He fished out a wad of letters and turned back to the man. "Make you late for dinner!"

Marcelle tried to fight back the grin that wanted to make itself known as the beginning of one of her favourite childhood books played out before her. Though there were slight differences…

Bilbo made a show of looking through his letters, humming and hawing almost like an unhappy donkey. It made her almost want to smack him, because it was very unflattering of him.

When he was finished, he told the man another "good morning" again and turned to go back into the hobbit-hole, hooking his pipe back into his mouth.

As he began to walk up the path, the man said, "As to think I would have lived to be _good morning-_ ed by Belladonna Took's son as if I was selling buttons at his door!"

This caused Bilbo to turn and look at the stranger in the most bemused manner. "I beg your pardon?" he queried. Marcelle bit her bottom lip to keep her from chuckling, for she had yet to see anyone have this much of an effect on her friend in all seven months she had known him.

The stranger hooked his thumb in his belt and said in the most disappointed tone, "You've changed, and not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins."

Bilbo was starting to get a little worried, even though he was trying not to show it. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Well, you know my _name_ ," the man told him. "Or you don't remember that I belong to it! I'm Gandalf, and Gandalf means… _me_!"

Recognition lit up his face. "Hold on, not the wizard who made such _excellent_ fireworks! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer's Eve!" Bilbo rocked back on his heels and let out a chuckle. Gandalf cleared his throat and glanced away as Bilbo added, "I had no idea you were still in business."

Gandalf's head whipped around as he looked back at Bilbo. "And where else should I be?" he questioned seriously.

Bilbo's mouth opened and he waved the end of his pipe around as he struggled to find a reply. In the end he cleared his throat loudly and began sucking on his pipe with a new vigour.

"…Well, I'm pleased to find you remember _something_ about me," the wizard admitted. "…Even if it's only my fireworks." With a sharp nod, he said, "Well, that's decided! It'll be very good for you… and most amusing for me!" Another nod. "I shall inform the others."

Bilbo was once again confused. "Inform the who?" and then realization dawned on him. "No!" he exclaimed as he pointed his pipe's mouthpiece at Gandalf. " _No_." he turned and trotted up the stone steps leading up to the front door. Swivelling back around, he informed the wizard sternly, " _We_ don't want any adventures _here_ , thank you—not today, not—" he cut himself off and halfway turned towards the door. "I-I suggest you try over the hill, or across the water." The hobbit gestured almost as if to shoo Gandalf off before promptly saying "good morning" again. Then he disappeared inside and shut the door behind him, leaving Marcelle alone outside with the wizard.

Slowly, she stood to her feet and tugged at the bottom of her waistcoat. Gandalf stood where he was for a moment longer before he opened the gate and stepped into the garden. Marcelle watched as he quietly walked up the path to the round green door. At the door, Gandalf used the large nail at the bottom end of his staff to carve out a large glowing blue rune. He then quickly peered in through the round window to the left of the door.

Gandalf chuckled as he pulled away from the window and began to make his way back to the gate. It was at the gate that he stopped and turned to look at the young woman standing by the bench. Marcelle couldn't help but stare at him as she clasped her hands together in front of her. Her mind wasn't quite working at the moment; it was too busy trying to take in every aspect of the grey wizard before he was on his way. To see him played by an actor on the screen was one thing, but to see in person, and not being acted out, was another thing entirely.

"Well, hello, young lady!" he greeted cheerfully enough. Once again he leaned against his staff as a look of curiosity crossed his features. "Are you an acquaintance of Bilbo's?"

Marcelle smiled. "We're friends," she said. "I've…I've known him for about seven months—and," she stopped to sigh, "I…I'm so sorry that he was so rude to you, he's usually not like that." She bit her bottom lip and fidgeted, before she managed to gather the courage to look the wizard in the eye. "The only times he's ever raised his voice in my presence was out of concern." she looked down at the toes of her purple boots. "You'd think he would be a little more interested on going on an adventure." she scratched the back of her neck with a dry smile. "After all, he's half Took!"

Gandalf seemed to stare at her for a long moment, as if looking into her mind in order to read her thoughts. This made Marcelle feel very uncomfortable, and she soon found herself trying to make her way up the path as discretely as possible. She paused at the top of the steps and looked back at the wizard.

"Who are you, woman of Man?"

She tensed at his words. In his eye, she could see that he suspected her of something, and he would no doubt try to get it from her.

But she would play the cryptic game. "I've already told someone, and he didn't believe me." With that, she quickly walked to the door and disappeared inside.

Let him stew about it. She knew she would be seeing him again very soon.

* * *

 **Hey, everyone, I hope you guys found this chapter interesting. Sad to say, after the next chapter is posted, I might have to put this story on hold for a bit. This is not an excuse because of writer's block or the like.**

 **The fact is, someone in the family miss-placed the DVD disk of** ** _An_** ** _Unexpected Journey_** **. I don't own a Blu-Ray player for my computer, so I can't use the Blu-Ray disk. I've been using the local library's copy of the first Hobbit movie, and I feel I'll have to give it back soon since I've been hogging it for over a month :P**

 **Fortunately, I'll be getting my paycheck at the end of the month, so I'll be buying a Google Play card that's able to hold enough money for the extended edition of the first Hobbit movie. But then, I still can't give you more until I write more chapters and edit them to my satisfaction.**

 **On top of that, I'll be getting another job as I save up for college, so updates will have to be moved Saturday because I'll be terribly busy (yay T_T), and I'm attempting to write another original piece (something along the lines of a modern mystery series starring a girl named Jericho Penn (or maybe something else). I'll try to post "Last lines written" on my tumblr account (Notestryder), so you can follow progress there – if you want.**

 **Anyway, see you next chapter!**

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 **SethAdoreVGC:** Thanks :) I'm glad you like it. I'll try not to rush, lol.

 **Guest:** Thank you!


	6. The Unexpected Party

**Hey, guys. Sorry for posting this chapter so late in the day :3 My day turned out to be filled with things and I wasted most of my time on Tumblr.**

 **I was met with a surprise this morning when I went to feed and water the outdoor cats – which is usually my brother's job but he goes on the bus very early in the morning – a very unsettling surprise. It was actually more like shock. I went into the cat shed and was instantly hit with a strong, acrid smell, and I looked over at the cat bed on the warm cat box Dad made for the cats. To my horror, the heat lamp we have to keep the cats warm had fallen into the bed and heated the blanket in the bed until a spot turned black and started to smoke.**

 **If I hadn't gone, right then, to do the cats, the cat shed would be no more and some of the cats might have died because they tend to spend a lot of time there in order to keep warm.**

 **Once again, I experienced a 'superhero moment' as I call it. How many crisis have adverted? Should my superhero name be "Close Call?" lol**

 **Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

 **Disclaimer:** _I, AndromedaAI, do not own the Hobbit. I do not own anything that has anything to do with Middle-Earth, hobbits, dwarves, or wizards. Or orcs or Necromancers. The only things I own are my copy of the Hobbit novel, and my copies of the movie. Oh! and Marcelle T. Bowman and her family. :3_

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6 - **The Unexpected Party** \- 6

The next day, Marcelle sat down at the kitchen table for first supper with Bilbo. She eyed the carrot-sticks, slices of cucumber, and the few cubes of cheese on her plate before looking up at her friend. She always ate less than normal when it came to first supper, since she knew she was going to have second supper not long after. And she never had much appetite nowadays, anyway.

"Bilbo," she said when her friend began to partake in his meal.

"Mmhmm?"

She picked up her fork and used it to push the carrot-sticks around on the plate. "About the encounter with Gandalf yesterday…"

The hobbit stopped chewing in surprise and met her gaze. She watched as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. He straightened. "What are you saying?"

"It appeared that Gandalf made you uncomfortable yesterday," she continued with a quick glance up from her meal. "I can't say that I blame you. I'm not up for much an adventure myself. But…" she set the fork down beside her plate. "Who said Gandalf was being serious?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Gandalf was being _very_ serious, Marcelle," Bilbo told her matter-of-factly. "And he mentioned others. He wouldn't mention telling others if that was all a joke." After another bite, he asked, "What was he talking to you about?"

Marcelle gave a half-hearted shrug. "He just wanted to know where I came from. Seemed genuinely curious as to why a human was living among hobbits," she smiled a little smile.

"And what did you tell him?"

She speared the carrot-stick she was playing with and lifted it from the plate. "I told him nothing. I told him that if I told him how I got to be living here, he wouldn't believe me." she then popped the carrot into her mouth.

Bilbo hummed at that before going back to his dinner.

Later, around when she thought Bilbo was going to be making second supper, the smell of fried fish reached her nose, having drifted down the hall and seeped in through her open bedroom door. Marcelle's stomach twisted at the smell, and she quickly made her way out to the kitchen where she knew her hobbit friend was.

"Bilbo?" she called.

Bilbo turned from where he stood hunched over the stove, watching a fish fry in the skillet. He gave her a small smile. "Hello, Marcelle, would you care for fish for second supper?"

Marcelle quickly shook her head and pressed a hand to her upper abdomen. "No, thank you, Bilbo, but I'm not all that hungry," she admitted.

Bilbo looked at her with concern. "But you barely ate anything for first supper!"

Marcelle let out a little sigh as Bilbo took the fish in the skillet and put it on the plate he held in his other hand. He sat down and set the plate down before him on the table before fixing her with a determined look. He opened his mouth in order to press his case, but Marcelle quickly spoke in order to stop him.

"Bilbo, you have to understand that, where I came from, people usually don't eat as frequently as we do here. There _are_ some who do, but they eat far differently and they focus on eating food that helps the body work at maximum efficiency," she explained, trying to keep her words from straying into technical terms that even the most skilled scholar in Middle-Earth might not be able to understand. "I can't do it all that well here, and the meals are always so extravagant and I can't possibly make myself eat when I am full."

Understanding seemed to dawn on him, and he nodded. "I see."

"It's not your fault," she told him with another sigh.

"I know you so well now, and seeing you so upset all the time…unsettles me," he told her, his frown tugging down on the corners of his mouth. "And the fact that you seem to get thinner every day…"

Marcelle let out a dry laugh that held no humour at all. "And to think I had trouble losing weight at home…and all it took was for me to be taken somewhere else so I could fret over the distance between me and my family until I was nothing more than skin and bones…"

The sudden ring of the doorbell at the door kept Bilbo from responding to that. "I'll get it," he told her as he got to his feet. He was out in the foyer before she could volunteer to do it in his stead so he could enjoy his supper.

She turned and crept up to the archway that separated the kitchen from the foyer, curious as to who was visiting. With the encounter with Gandalf being only yesterday, she didn't think that "the others" would be here just quite yet.

"Dwalin, at your service." Or, she could be wrong.

"Bilbo Baggins…at yours," she heard her hobbit friend reply. "…Do we know each other?"

A burly dwarf with a bald head and dark beard and hair stepped into the foyer, and glowered down at Bilbo. "No." He shrugged off his heavy coat as he said, "Which way, laddie? Is it down here?"

"Is what down where?"

"Supper! He said there would be food, and lots of it!"

"He said? Who said?"

 _Probably Gandalf,_ Marcelle wanted to answer, but kept her mouth shut. She stepped back as Dwalin marched into the kitchen. She watched with mild curiosity while also wanting to melt into the wood paneling in the wall behind her as the dwarf caught sight of Bilbo's second supper sitting on the table.

But then he saw her and offered her a short bow. "Dwalin, at your service," he repeated.

Caught off guard, she fumbled to come up with an answer, and shortly decided on simply saying: "Marcelle…at yours?" She never really knew what to say to people she didn't know or had the time to prepare for meeting them. As Dwalin went and sat himself down in Bilbo's place, she shot Bilbo a look that was a cross between surprise, shock, and nervousness. Bilbo gaped back at her before he went and sat to Dwalin's right. Marcelle stayed standing on her feet.

Dwalin was soon done, and asked around a mouthful of fish-head, "Very good, this. Any more?" and he tossed what was left of the fishbone off to the side. Marcelle couldn't help but flinch at the blatant disregard of table manners, and Bilbo made a face that said he agreed with her.

"What? O-oh, uh, yes. Yes." Bilbo got to his feet and walked over to where a small basket of biscuits sat on the window ledge. She caught him pocket four of them before placing the basket down in front of the dwarf.

Immediately, Dwalin scooped one up and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

Marcelle had to stamp down on the urge to shudder. Dwalin's lack of manners reminded her of Jason's lack, and how she constantly had to count to ten in her head so that she didn't explode at her brother when he talked with his mouth full or chewed with his mouth open.

"It's just that, um, I wasn't expecting company," Bilbo said, trying to remain courteous and polite even though it appeared he was having troubles standing still.

The doorbell suddenly rang again and Dwalin gave Bilbo a pointed look when he hesitated out of surprise. "That would be the door," the dwarf prompted.

"I'll get it!" Marcelle exclaimed, leaping on the chance to leave the kitchen without appearing discourteous. Bilbo was right behind her as she rushed into the foyer, since he was the man of the house. She grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open.

The man at the door this time was older than Dwalin with white hair and kind dark eyes. He was dressed in a red coat with his thumbs tucked into his wide belt.

He threw his hands out to the sides and bowed with a smile. "Balin, at your service," he announced.

"Good evening," Bilbo greeted after the dwarf had straightened.

Balin nodded in agreement. "Yes, yes it is," he said as he glanced up at the sky.

He stepped in through the door, and added, serious, "Though, I think it might rain later." He grabbed Bilbo's hand and shook it. "Am I late?"

"Late for…what?" Poor Bilbo.

Marcelle smiled a little. "No, you're not late," she told the dwarf. "Um…there was no… _exact_ time. At least, I don't think so…?"

Bilbo shot her a look that dripped with unhappiness at the situation.

A clanging sound from the sitting room drew the new dwarf's attention, and he exclaimed happily with recognition. He laughed and walked into the sitting room. "Evening, brother!"

Marcelle heard Dwalin laugh and turned to look. "By my _beard_! You're shorter and whiter than when we last met!" the first-to-arrive proclaimed.

"Whiter, not shorter," Balin rebuffed playfully as Bilbo went to shut the door. Marcelle found herself rooted to the spot as she watched in fascination, not quite believing that this was really happening.

J.R.R. Tolkien had laid it out almost plainly when he wrote _The Hobbit_ , and didn't detail much conversation between the dwarves, and he made it so it looked like the dwarves arrived at the door almost immediately one after the other.

The two dwarves spoke to each other for a bit more before suddenly bashing their heads together with enough force that it should have knocked them out but it didn't. Marcelle jumped in surprise before wondering if that was some sort of dwarvish greeting.

"Ah, excuse me," Bilbo spoke up, having drifted from the door, leaving it open partially. "Sorry. Hate to interrupt, ah, but the thing is I'm not entirely sure" he pointed back to the door despite the fact it seemed that the dwarves were not paying attention to him "you're in the right house."

Marcelle stepped up and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Bilbo, they're not listening," she told him before going back to the door so she could close it. No need to needlessly lose heat out into the cool spring night.

When she turned around, she saw that the dwarves had moved from the sitting room and into the pantry off the kitchen. Bilbo had followed them and from what she could hear, he was still trying to politely convince them to leave. She followed the sound of Bilbo's voice and arrived at the pantry in time to dodge a flying triangle of blue cheese. She watched it sail through the air before plopping to the ground. The sight of the cheese being needlessly wasted made the hobbit pause with one index finger poised in the air.

Immediately, Marcelle crouched down and cleaned up the mess left from the spoiled cheese. "Not to worry, Bilbo, there is more blue cheese where that came from," she sighed. _I'm just glad it's gone for now,_ she thought. She had never liked blue cheese, and whenever she had caught sight of the cheese when she entered the pantry had made her slightly queasy.

Slowly, Bilbo turned back to the dwarves and squared his jaw. "I don't mean to be blunt, but I have to speak my mind: I'm sorry."

This caused Dwalin and Balin to stop and turn to face the hobbit as one. Bilbo cleared his throat.

They stared at him for a moment, before Balin said, "Apology accepted." This dumbfounded Bilbo, and the ringing of the bell again halted him from pursuing a tirade she could see buzzing around inside his head. Marcelle watched as he strode off to answer the door again, looking a bit dazed.

She shook her head with a sigh before she stepped up to the two dwarves. "I'm so sorry," she piped up, saying it just loud enough to catch their attention. Balin passed a couple loaves of bread to her in response. "Bilbo usually likes to have visitors over, but he forgot that you were coming over so he's…still trying to adjust—if that's the right word."

"No worries, lass," Balin said as she backed away, making room for the two to pass out of the pantry.

Marcelle fidgeted before following the dwarves into the dining room. "Um, I guess—ah, what I'm trying to say is that…that…" the dwarves set the food down on the table and looked back at her. "Is that…" Marcelle squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the words she wanted to say so that they came out clearly and not muddled. "That Gandalf…didn't exactly tell Bilbo, in a straightforward manner, that he was inviting you to come here." She went and set the bread down on the table next to what the dwarves brought. "But now that you are here…well it doesn't matter, does it? You're here."

"Aye," Dwalin voiced as the both of them nodded.

When they had gone back to the pantry, Marcelle turned her back to their general direction and wiped the sweat from her brow. Playing inter-person interaction diplomat was no easy feat, especially since people who she thought were fictional were not so fictional after all. She went and retreated to the sitting room, where she went and sat down in what she had dubbed "her chair" only a few weeks after she arrived. She was sweating profusely, and it wasn't because she was hot. No, it was because she realized that what she thought was real and what was not was becoming mixed and confused. It hadn't been so blatant as it was now.

She was a master at putting off worrying about something she couldn't control, but at Dwalin and Balin's arrival that all came crashing down on her and she fought to keep her emotions under control. The last thing she needed was a house-full of men to believe that she was weak—emotionally weak.

The tromping of boots in the hall caused her to turn, and she caught the back of a new, dark-haired dwarf cleaning his boots on the hope chest against the wall. She shot to her feet, anger flaring in the pit of her stomach. "Hey!" she cried. "Don't clean your boots on the furniture!"

The dwarf whirled around and blinked when he saw her there, but before he could say anything Dwalin appeared out of nowhere and dragged him in the direction of the kitchen.

The doorbell rang again, insistent, as Marcelle charged from the sitting room, intent on chasing down the dwarf who had the gall to wipe his boots off on something that was clearly not a boot-cleaning tool. But she then caught sight of Bilbo, arms laden with weapons, trying to make his way back to the door.

He positively growled at the doorbell's announcement of more visitors. "There's nobody home!" he bellowed. "Go away and _bother somebody else_!"

Marcelle passed him as he dumped the bundle of weapons on the floor by the door. "Shouting at them while telling them you're not home does not work, Mr. Baggins," she chastised as she turned into the foyer. She grabbed the doorknob and heaved the door open.

A loud gasp escaped her when a pile of dwarves fell in and landed in a dog pile on the floor.

"There are too many dwarves in here as there is!" Bilbo exclaimed, composure crumbling.

Marcelle was inclined to agree, but she could do nothing about it. She wasn't much of a people person and often didn't socialise outside of Bilbo's company nowadays. Whenever he had a party, she often spent it in her room since she wasn't up to socializing and she was a "Big Person". She didn't want to ruin Bilbo's time when he did socialize.

The young woman was too busy apologising to the dwarves to listen much to Bilbo's grumbling. "Sorry! So sorry! If there was a peep-hole in the door I would have known that you were there," she apologised profusely as the dwarves struggled to pick themselves up.

Behind the mountain of dwarves stood a familiar grey-clad man, who bent down to look in through the door as the dwarves grumbled amongst themselves.

 _I remember something like this happening in the book, but in the book it was Bilbo who caused them to fall over! Not me! Another reason why I'm not supposed to be here!_

The first dwarf to his feet was one wearing a strange hat on his head. He dusted himself off before he noticed Bilbo and her standing there. He quickly bowed and announced, "Bofur at your service!"

Apparently, the rest of the expected dwarves, save one, had arrived with Gandalf. Bifur, Bombur, Gloin, Oin, Ori, Nori, and Dori introduced themselves before disappearing into the depths of the hobbit-hole to join Dwalin and Balin, the dwarf who wiped his boots off on the hope chest (…Kíli?) and the dwarf who left Bilbo holding his weapons (Fíli?).

Gandalf stepped into the foyer and shut the door behind him.

* * *

With so many dwarves in one space, speaking and carrying on at the same time, it was almost unbearably loud. Bilbo's pantry was quickly emptied and food was set out on the long dining room table. At one point, when they were not looking, Bilbo handed her two of the scones he had managed to grab before giving the rest to Dwalin, and they retreated for a moment to shove them down so that they could go back to monitoring their guests.

Marcelle couldn't keep the exclamation of surprise and horror from escaping her when a blonde dwarf got up on the table and started walking amongst the food while handing out wooden tankards of ale. She suddenly had the urge to rush up to him and slap him on the back of the hand, but reeled herself in so that she didn't embarrass herself. _Mom would be screaming bloody murder if she was here to see this!_ she couldn't help but think as she watched the rowdy dwarves feast. _Or she would be having an aneurism!_

She then had to physically remove herself from the dining room as the dwarves began to have a literal burping contest. It brought back memories of when her brothers would have at it while she was trying to have a meal or read a book outside of her room. So she was not going to allow herself be tortured in that way now. No way, no how!

"Okay, Bilbo, I'm fully on your page now!" she exclaimed, sure that smoke would be coming out of her ears and nose if it were possible. She found him standing near the other entrance to the dining room, covering his eyes with a hand. She was pretty sure he was trying to count to twenty without losing his temper.

* * *

"Confound these dwarves!" Bilbo hissed to himself out of pure and utter frustration. He didn't care if Marcelle was sitting only two feet away on a box in the hall, thinly-veiled frustration and a look of "help me" clear on her face.

Gandalf emerged from an archway behind him. "My dear Bilbo, what on Earth is the matter?" he asked as he straightened to his full height.

Bilbo whirled around to face him. "What is the matter? I'm surrounded by dwarves— _we_ , Miss Bowman and I, are surrounded by dwarves! What are they doing here?" he hissed as he followed the wizard down the hall.

Gandalf smiled warmly as Bofur and Nori playfully fought over a string of sausages. "Oh, well, they're a merry gathering!" he said. "…Once you get used to them."

Bilbo grabbed at the wizard's elbow insistently. "I don't _want_ to get _used_ to them!" he growled. "Look at the state of my kitchen!" he pointed to the hall through the archway next to them. "There's _mud_ in the carpet!" He stepped through the archway and pointed down the hall. "They _pillaged_ my pantry!" And as he strode down the hall he continued to rant, "And I'm not even going to tell you about the bathroom. They've all but destroyed the plumbing! I don't understand what they're doing in my house!" He slowly planted his hands on his hips and sighed angrily.

Ori came striding from the dining room and stopped beside the hobbit, holding his plate. "Excuse me," he voiced politely. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but what should I do with my plate?"

Fili came out of nowhere and took the plate from him. "Here you go, Ori, give it to me." He then chucked it down the hall where his brother Kili caught it after Gandalf jumped out of the way.

As the dishes began to fly, Bilbo tried to get the dwarves to stop. Somewhere else in the hobbit-hole, Marcelle let out a screech of horror, voicing plainly that her nerves were absolutely, positively, frayed. "Bilbo! Your plates!"

* * *

" _That's what Bilbo Baggins hates_!"

The house went still after the dwarves stopped singing and all the used dishes were flung about. Marcelle crept into the kitchen and couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the stack of clean dishes sitting on the table there.

Three strong knocks on the round front door quieted the laughter that had abounded in the kitchen, and everyone turned to look it's way.

"He is here," Gandalf announced quietly.

Everyone crowded at the kitchen doorway that lead into the foyer and Gandalf went and opened the door.

At the door stood a proud dwarf, one who was at least five feet tall. He had long black hair that was starting to grey in streaks, and some of the bluest blue eyes Marcelle had ever seen.

The dwarf sent a wry look in Gandalf's direction as he stepped into the foyer. "Gandalf. I thought you said this place would be easy to find—I lost my way, twice," he glanced over at the gathered dwarves and Bilbo. Marcelle found herself taking a step back when his gaze lingered a little longer on her. Yes, she was a human amongst a sea of dwarves, and a female outnumbered by males drastically—she huffed and walked back into the kitchen and began to put the clean dishes back into their proper spots.

 _I know where this is going to go,_ she thought as she huffed again, rolling her eyes for good measure, something she wouldn't do if someone was watching. _'Oh, you're a woman, you can't come on the quest because you are too weak!' Weak, my foot. Last time I checked, I could hold my own against a man._ Fond memories of play-wrestling with her brothers floated back to her. Despite the fact that her younger brother was quickly becoming stronger than her, she had been able to subdue Jason and Mitchell more than once. Of course, when she would wake up the next morning, she would be sore all over and barely able to move…

"…there is no mark on that door! I just had it painted a week ago!" she heard Bilbo protest.

Marcelle let out a sigh and braced her hands on the edge of the low countertop. She tried to search her mind on the identity of the newcomer, but it had become clouded with emotions that threatened to swallow her up. _For land's sakes, Marcelle! Get a-hold of yourself!_ She took a deep breath to steady herself. _You are not_ weak _. You can be as strong as those dwarves if you want to be!_ She straightened, narrowly missing bumping her head on the ceiling where it curved down sooner than the rest of the ceiling in the kitchen. "Mom always said that the first step to making oneself appear strong was to make sure that those around them has food," she recalled, whispering to herself.

Turning, she quickly strode over to the large cauldron hanging over the fire, and peered inside. The dwarves had eaten most of what Bilbo had, but this cauldron was massive—surely it wasn't empty! She picked up the ladle and dipped it deep into the cauldron. It scraped against the bottom, but she could still hear some stew sloshing about inside.

She turned and retrieved a bowl. _This newcomer has surely got to be hungry from his travels. I don't care if he looked down at me just now. I'll just 'turn the other cheek' as Mom would say._ Marcelle found herself grasping for the lessons on courtesy and politeness her mother had raised her with as she picked up the ladle and began to pour stew into the bowl.

When it was full, Marcelle straightened and set it down on the table. She then searched for a spoon and set it in the bowl. Then she remembered that Bilbo had stashed some cookies somewhere, having seen him cart the cookie jar off somewhere so the dwarves couldn't get their hands in it.

She eventually found it in Bilbo's mother's glory box—the hope chest that dwarf cleaned his boots off on, and she set the remainder of the cookies out on a plate before she took the soup into the dining room and set it down in front of the latecomer. He nodded to her in thanks before he began to eat.

Marcelle retreated back into the kitchen and stood just inside the doorway with the intentions of eavesdropping. She wanted to hear what they were talking about and she wanted to know who this dwarf was, even though she had an inkling of who it was, especially since everyone else in the company except one important dwarf had shown up.

"What news do you bring from the meeting in Ered Luin?" Balin asked suddenly. "Did they all come?"

"Aye," replied the new dwarf. "Envoys from all seven kingdoms."

"All of them!" Balin sounded surprised, and overjoyed as all the dwarves seemed to talk at once in cheer.

Dwalin spoke up. "And what did the dwarves of the Iron Hills say?" There was a small pause. "Is Dain with us?"

There was another pause before the new dwarf answered solemnly, "They will not come."

Groans rose up at the sound of the bad news, and it lasted for a moment before the new dwarf continued. "They say this quest is ours and ours alone."

"You're—you're going on a quest?" Bilbo suddenly spoke up.

"Bilbo, my dear fellow, let us have a little more light," Gandalf requested lightly.

A map was stretched out on the table and the dwarves and the wizard discussed it. Marcelle crept closer and hovered just outside the dining room as Bilbo brought another candle and hovered next to the new dwarf, whom it was soon confirmed to her as Thorin Oakenshield.

They spoke of the Lonely Mountain, and they discussed the "portents" and the prophecy of how the dwarves would go back to "Erebor"—the kingdom under the Lonely Mountain.

"Ravens have been seen flying back to the mountain, as it was foretold," Óin said (Marcelle believed it was Óin—she was never really good at remembering names when she was forced to meet several individuals at once). "'When the birds of yore return to Erebor the reign of the beast will end.'"

"Uh, what beast?" Bilbo stood there, looking quite unsure and a bit discomfited at the direction the conversation was turning.

"That would be a reference to Smaug the Terrible," Bofur—she knew this was Bofur because of the hat he was wearing—explained. "Chiefest and greatest calamity of our age."

Marcelle didn't like the twinge of uncertainty and fear that shot through her chest at the reminder of one of the many dangers that inhabited land. It was easy to forget that there was such a thing as _dragons_ in Middle-Earth.

"Airborne fire-breather," Bofur continued. "Teeth like razors, claws like meat hooks." Marcelle didn't miss how Bilbo had laced the fingers of both his hands together and was now pressing his palms to his chest. She found that even she was unsettled enough by Bofur's description that she was now gripping some of the fabric of her dress in her hands. "Extremely fond of precious metals," the dwarf added before he was cut off by the hobbit.

"Yes, I know what a dragon is," Bilbo retorted with a tight expression of thinly veiled…fear?

The youngest dwarf suddenly leapt to his feet and leaned against the table. "I'm not afraid! I'm up for it!" Dori—no, _Ori_ —exclaimed, full of excited enthusiasm and premature bravado. "I'll give him a taste of Dwarfish iron right up his jacksie!"

"Good lad, Ori!" called one of the chestnut-haired dwarves before the grey-haired one next to him pulled Ori back down onto his seat.

"The task would be difficult enough with an _army_ behind us," Balin pointed out once everyone calmed down again. "But we number just thirteen. And not thirteen of the best…nor brightest."

Murmuring started up again, and Marcelle could only guess that more than one ego had been bruised by Balin's comment.

"We may be few in number," the blond dwarf at the far end of the table suddenly said loud enough for everyone to hear. "But we're fighters, all of us, to the last Dwarf!"

"And you forget, we have a _wizard_ in our company!" the dark haired dwarf, the one who wiped his boots on Bilbo's mother's glory box earlier, added. "Gandalf will have killed _hundreds_ of dragons in his time."

"Oh, well, no. I—I wouldn't say—" Gandalf began as all the dwarves looked his way.

"How many, then?" the grey haired dwarf next to Ori asked.

"What?" Gandalf practically choked out.

It got really quiet as the dwarf repeated his question. "Well, how many dragons have you killed?"

Gandalf made a show of coughing to stall for time. _He hasn't killed any dragons,_ Marcelle voiced internally as she crossed her arms and bit her tongue. _It's not like people have had to constantly kill dragons in the past, I imagine. Smaug's attack on the Lonely Mountain came from out of the blue and took everyone by surprise because, probably, a dragon hadn't made itself known for quite some time._

"Go on. Give us a number." And then all of the dwarves leapt to their feet and began to shout. Marcelle took a step back as her ears were accosted with the sound of many voices speaking too loudly for such a small room.

Suddenly, Thorin shouted something in dwarvish, and all the dwarves hushed and sat back down. For a moment, the young woman couldn't help but be in awe of the control he had over his men, but that was quickly shoved aside by the air of importance that seemed to radiate from him.

Normally, Marcelle would be fine to be in the presence of someone who was important, but she couldn't stand being in the presence of someone who was too _proud_. And she felt Thorin was too proud. She refrained from wrinkling her nose in slight disgust, and told herself she was going to retire as soon as she was able. Things were getting interesting, unfortunately, and she couldn't seem to get herself to walk away.

 _This is nothing like how the book turned out,_ she noted. After a moment, a thought came to her that left her feeling horrified, and she had to fight to keep her eyebrows from rising and her eyes widening. _Have I changed it_ that much _? Has my presence here changed the course of how things are going to pan out?_ If her standing there, listening in, had caused the conversation they were having about the Lonely Mountain to change, how would the journey _to_ the Lonely Mountain be changed because of her? _Maybe I should just stay here. Then I would be able to protect Bag End from the Sackville-Bagginses?_

"…do you not think others will have read them too?" Thorin was saying. He paused to gauge everyone's reaction to his words. "Rumors have begun to spread. The dragon, Smaug, has not been seen for sixty years. Eyes look east to the mountain, assessing…wondering…weighing the risk. Perhaps the vast wealth of our people now lies unprotected? Do we sit back while others _claim_ what is rightfully ours? Or do we seize this chance to _take back_ Erebor?"

The dwarves cheered. Marcelle began to wring her fingers.

"You forget, the Front Gate is sealed," Balin piped up, 'raining on their parade' so to speak. "There is no way into the mountain."

'There is a way' almost slipped from between her lips, but she pressed them together forcefully. The last thing she needed was to have them ask how she knew. Gandalf was already curious as to why she was living in Bag End, and she was afraid he would not believe her if she told him outright, and truthfully that she wasn't from Middle-Earth.

"That, my dear Balin, is not entirely true," Gandalf said as he suddenly began to finger an odd key in his right hand.

Thorin's jaw practically dropped. "How came you by this?" he asked, voice quiet, almost in reverence, as if he knew where it came from.

"It was given to me by your father," Gandalf explained. "By Thrain. For safekeeping." Slowly, he stretched his right hand to Thorin. "It is yours now."

"If there's a key…there must be a door," the blond dwarf remarked.

* * *

They talked some more about the map, and Gandalf spoke of how the key could be used to open a door on the side of the mountain. Marcelle couldn't help but think back to the chapter in _The Hobbit_ —"Inside Information"—where Smaug blasted the side of the mountain where the door was located with fire until the door was permanently sealed and the dwarves and Bilbo were stuck inside the mountain.

Shivers raced up and down her back at the thought of such power being flung in her direction, and made a promise to herself that she would try to make sure that no one she cared about faced such a horrible fate—death by scorching fire.

But first, she would have to convince the dwarves (and Bilbo, for undoubtedly he would try and stop her from going for fear of her safety), to let her come.

Balin brought out a contract for Bilbo to sign.

"It's just the usual," Balin told him. "Summary of out-of-pocket expenses, time required, remuneration"—'remuneration'? What did that mean?—"funeral arrangements, so forth."

"Funeral arrangements?!" Bilbo sputtered as Thorin shoved the contract into his chest.

Marcelle watched as he moaned, clearly overwhelmed. Bilbo walked into the hall and unfolded the contract, and it turned out to be very long with leafs that folded out on the side. Marcelle stepped up beside him and peered down at the eloquently worded sentences.

"Terms: Cash on delivery, up to but not exceeding one-fourteenth of total profit, if any," Bilbo read aloud. "Hmm. Seems fair."

Marcelle quickly read the next sentence, dread pooling in the pit of her stomach at the words. "'Present company shall not be liable for injuries inflicted by or sustained as a consequence thereof, including, but not limited to…lacerations…evisceration…'" she gulped " _Incineration_?!" she shared a look of horror with her hobbit friend before whirling on Gandalf. "Incineration?" she seethed. "I guess that has to be put in there because you'll be feeding him to the dragon when you get to the mountain, eh?!" she couldn't help but feel protective of Bilbo because of all he had done for her.

"Incineration?" Bilbo echoed.

"Aye, he'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye," Bofur supplied (not so) helpfully as Gandalf gave her a look that could only have been interpreted as a helpless shrug.

Bilbo whimpered quietly, and it made her just want to pick him up and cart him away to somewhere far away and safe.

"You all right, laddie?" Balin asked slowly. "…lass?"

Marcelle's head whipped around and she looked at him with raised eyebrows. She had to admit that she must have been as white as a ghost right then.

"Huh? Yeah," both of them replied at the same time.

Bilbo started taking deep breaths and braced his hands on his knees. He was turning an alarming shade of white.

"Feel a bit faint," he admitted eventually.

"Think furnace with wings!" Bofur added morbidly.

"Air—I need air," Bilbo suddenly said.

"Bofur!" Marcelle couldn't help but bark as she took her handkerchief out of her pocket and fanned it in front of her friend in hopes of creating some air movement. Bilbo only continued to become paler by the second.

"Flash of light, then searing pain, then _poof_! You're nothing more than a pile of ash!"

" _Bofur_!" Marcelle couldn't help but try to verbally slap the tack-less dwarf.

An extreme look of concentration came over the hobbit's face as he straightened, despite the fact that he practically looked grey at this point. He then took a deep breath before finally uttering, "Nope."

And then he promptly fainted.

"Oh, very helpful, Bofur," grumbled Gandalf as he climbed out of the dining room.

Marcelle dropped to her knees and lightly patted the side of her friend's face. She wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do, she had never really had to deal with someone who fainted before. She had heard from somewhere that smelling salts were often used to wake someone from a faint, but she didn't have any of those and had no real desire to disturb Bilbo so soon after the thought of facing a dragon had overwhelmed him.

With Gandalf's help, she picked him up and lugged him into the sitting room, where she lay him down on the couch in the corner. She then covered him with a blanket and tucked it in around him. She hesitated before patting his cheek again, hoping that it would stir him from his faint. When he didn't respond, she took a step back and straightened with a sigh.

Marcelle went over to the fire and turned one of the chairs around so that she could watch her friend. She sat down and braced her hands on her knees.

Gandalf took the other chair and turned it around as well. Once he was sitting, they sat together in companionable silence as they waited for Bilbo to awake.

Almost exactly five minutes later, though, the wizard asked a question.

"I didn't quite get the answer I was hoping for when we first met, young lady, and I can't help but ask again. From whence do you hail, young lady?"

Marcelle turned her head and looked at him. _I already answered this question, I shouldn't have to answer it again,_ she thought, irritated. _He won't believe me—_

 _Just try,_ the brave part of her argued. _He is, after all, a wizard._

There was a look in his blue eyes that told her that he was interested enough to listen to her story while they waited for Bilbo. Marcelle was just afraid that what she said would be denied. Bilbo didn't believe her when she told him she wasn't from Middle-Earth, so why would Gandalf believe her?

 _Just try!_ that brave part of her insisted.

Marcelle took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and let herself think about where she should start as she turned her head away from the wizard. _What to tell him first?_ she mused. _Should I tell him about where I come from first? Or should I tell him about how I got here first?_ Slowly, she opened her eyes when she realized that it would be logical to tell Gandalf about the world she knew before she explained how she crashed into Bilbo's hill…

With a quiet huff, Marcelle turned in her seat in order to face Gandalf more directly, deciding that she would just have to go with whatever fell out of her mouth. "I-I come from a world very different from Middle-Earth. I…I mean, there're hills and trees, and there's the sun and the moon, and birds and bees and… and…" she stopped herself and forcefully drove herself to get to the point. "But where I come from…it's more advanced than… _here_."

Gandalf's eyes narrowed only slightly, to the point it was hardly noticeable. "How much more advanced?" he asked cautiously.

Marcelle bit her bottom lip. She looked left and right and back again while she sought for coherent words. "Um…" finally, she found them, "Well… where I come from, we don't use horses to get around anymore—they're more for recreation. We have…lamps that can turn themselves on and off. We don't need to use candles anymore unless it's a holiday or the power goes out. With the vehicles we have—which are kind of like carriages that can move themselves—we can travel long distances in a matter of hours instead of days, weeks." She stood and began to pace back and forth. Then she suddenly stopped and looked at the wizard. "I owned one. I don't know how I got here, but I crashed in mine. I crashed right into the side of Bilbo's hill."

Amusement danced in the wizard's eyes. "You made quite an entrance, then," he chuckled.

Marcelle could only bring herself to shrug. Eventually, she took a deep breath to steady her heart, but failed to stop herself from wringing her hands together out of nervousness. "But, you see, I'm not _from here_. Bilbo doesn't believe me, so that's why I was a little hesitant to…tell you." She gazed over at the unconscious form of her friend.

But then she returned her full attention to the wizard, a bit surprised at the fact that he had been able to loosen her tongue so easily. She wondered if it had anything to do with magic.

Casually, Gandalf took out his pipe and filled the bowl with pipe weed. He paused to ask if she would mind if he smoked in her presence, but she nodded before the words even left his mouth. She watched as he flicked his index finger and used the flame that appeared there to light the weed.

After a quick draw on the pipe, Gandalf blew out a smoke ring. "Let me tell you this, Miss Bowman." Marcelle's mouth dropped open in surprise, because she was fairly certain she hadn't told the wizard her last name. But before she could address it, Gandalf continued. "Around seven moons ago, I felt something." he looked at her for a moment. "And the feeling I experienced then is the feeling I feel now, to a lesser degree of course."

Marcelle tried to hide the alarm that wanted to make itself known, but it still managed to reach her eyes, which widened. _He was right. The man in the market was right!_ She didn't know if she should be excited or worried or wary of this. Gandalf was good, that much she was certain, but he had felt her, and the man felt her enter this world, so who else? At this point, she wouldn't be surprised if half of Middle-Earth knew she was here at this point.

"Feeling?" was all she was really able to say at that point, quite discomfited. _I have a certain feeling? Weird._

Marcelle blinked a few times and tried to process that thought, but quickly found herself shoving to the side as she mustered up the cognitive thought to ask, "Gandalf, I understand that you are a wizard, yes?"

"Yes," he nodded.

Marcelle couldn't help but wring her hands together again. "Do…" she took a deep breath. "Do you think you could help me get home?" She then squeezed her eyes shut and mentally prepared herself to be ridiculed.

But she was quickly surprised when no incredulous laugh reached her ears. Slowly, she blinked open her eyes and looked up at the wizard. The look on his face was grim, and there was a contemplative look in his eyes.

* * *

 **Well, that was a fun chapter :D I had so much fun with the events of this chapter – because this is the part of the movie where I feel that I resonate with Bilbo the most. Dwarves storming in and moving furniture around, treading mud in the carpet, and having, of all things, burping contests would definitely make me want to set fire to them as much as Bilbo did, lol.**

 **Now, for the state of this story.**

 **1) I** ** _HAVE_** **to give the library's copy of** ** _An Unexpected Journey_** **back—because if I renew it, the library will charge me $4.00. So that means I have no Hobbit Movie #1. Which means I can't continue writing.**

 **2) Today, I ordered the Extended Edition of the Hobbit Trilogy – meaning, I'll be getting the Extended Edition of** ** _all three movies_** **. Amazon says it's going to take 1 to 2 months for it to get to where I live, but I don't believe that is so. One reviewer of the product said they got it relatively quickly, so the '1 to 2 month' thing is probably just a precaution in case there's a back-log of orders.**

 **3) I won't leave you guys with nothing while you wait – I plan to fill the time waiting for the movies to come with one-shots and Bilbo AUs, lol.**

 **I just hope I wrote Gandalf correctly in this chapter…**

* * *

 **icanhascamaro:** Aw, thanks ^^ I'm glad that you found it so enjoyable. My favourite part of that chapter was the dream sequence at the beginning and Gandalf's appearance at the end.

 **SethAdoreVGC:** *fistbump* And the dwarves are here!


	7. Pack Your Bags, We Don't Want to Be Late

**Hey readers! Yes, this is a new chapter - but I regret to inform you that this does not mean that I'll be going back to updating regularly just yet.**

 **For one thing, I've been a lot busier than I would like, and thus I've been stricken with a tiny bout of writer's block that comes in the form of "not wanting to write" more than "not knowing what I want to write" for this story.**

 **My busy-ness comes in the form of worrying/searching for/about my potential second job and the fact that I now want to write a novella/eShort so I can publish it on Kindle in hopes that I can get some income to help save for college (any little bit helps, right?) I was one of the first to send in a resume to my local newspaper because they were looking for someone to fill a secretarial position there. I've yet to hear back from them, and I fear that they will not contact me to let me know if they don't want me (which irks me).**

 **Now, I have plans, so I'm not abandoning this story (if anyone was worrying about that). This story is just not a major priority right now - especially since I was accepted into the course at the college I want to go to last week.**

 **I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter and that it ties you over until next time - this chapter marks the boundary where a subplot rears its head. Can you spot it?**

 **[Note: honestly, I did not mean to make Marcelle look over-the-top feminist when I wrote this chapter. I like to see it as she's reacting to "that's not fair!" and desperation since dwarven culture is what's standing in her way, lol.]**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own anything to do with _The Hobbit_ or Middle-Earth. I only own Marcelle T. Bowman. I apologise for the long Author's Note.

* * *

7 – **Pack Your Bags, We Don't Want to Be Late!** – 7

Gandalf managed to skirt around her question, and his answer never really answered the question at all. This left Marcelle feeling empty inside, and lost. She knew that Gandalf was like that, when he was faced with a difficult question—he never really answered that dwarf's question on the amount of dragons he had slayed, after all.

So, Marcelle retired early after Bilbo awoke and had a cup of calming camomile tea. She left him to deal with the dwarves and the wizard by himself as they drifted into the sitting room to smoke.

She knelt by her bedside and prayed for peace of mind. Then she prayed for safety on the journey and for the dwarves to allow her to join them on their quest. She had asked Gandalf if she could come, and she had told him she wasn't going to allow herself to be left behind if Bilbo were to go. After a bit, he seemed to be fine with it, but he warned her that the dwarves would be less than likely to allow her to join them.

"Dwarves are a very private race, Miss Bowman. It took quite a significant amount of convincing on my part for Thorin to allow me to choose the burglar. I take it he will not be pleased if a young woman of Man attempts to join when he considers this strictly dwarf-only business," he had told her as he rose to leave and join the others.

"Then why does he seem fine with Bilbo going? He's not a dwarf—he's a hobbit!" Marcelle retorted.

Gandalf seemed to hesitate for only a moment. "Yes, but I have explained to him why he needs a hobbit. And Bilbo is a man."

Marcelle shot to her feet as her cheeks reddened in offence. She leveled the wizard with a hot glare.

Marcelle T. Bowman had never really considered herself a feminist. And even if she did, she didn't consider herself much of one. But when Gandalf said that one of the reasons why Bilbo had been so readily accepted was because he was _male_ …!

"I'll have you know that I could easily do whatever a man can do with the proper training, Gandalf!" She spent the next few minutes trying not to explode in anger as she explained to him exactly what she was capable of.

Now, she rose to her feet and lit the candle sitting on the desk. She pulled out her journal and her quill and ink, and she started a new entry.

 _April 27_ _th_ _, 2941 SR*, Bag End, Hobbiton, the Shire, Middle Earth_

 _I've run into quite the predicament. Bilbo, my friend Bilbo, has been invited on the quest to reclaim Erebor—or the Lonely Mountain, as I grew up knowing it. The poor man fainted when he learned of what he would have to face on the way to reclaim the mountain, something much more startling than the shriek book-Bilbo let loose when I was young, followed by "struck by lightning, struck by lightning!"_

 _No, the Bilbo I know is too level-headed for that. No, instead, as the dwarf known as Bofur, the one with the strange hat, continued to become more and more graphic in his "vague" descriptions of Smaug, Bilbo clearly descended into a panic attack, which ended with a prompt "Nope," before he collapsed in a dead faint. I daresay, if I was back at home, reading this, I would have laughed. But Bilbo's my friend, and I did not find an ounce of laughter in me when he passed out. Instead, I carted him into the sitting room with Gandalf's help, where I set him down on the couch._

 _Tomorrow, we'll—no, Bilbo will be setting out on the adventure. Until I can convince the men of the Company that I'm just as worthy as any man, I'll stick to just saying Bilbo's going. It's unlikely that the dwarves will allow me to come along willingly, so I'll somehow have to figure out how to make them let me come._

 _But how? And I'd feel so guilty. I'm not that kind of person—it doesn't feel right to push my way into someone's business. But I'll have to if I want to prove my hypothesis true. Gandalf was not helpful in providing any answers. And Grandma used to always tell me that if I wanted to find answers, and nobody would provide them for me, that I just had to find them myself._

 _Gandalf wouldn't give me any answers, so I will go on this journey and find them myself._

 _As a footnote: I always thought Smaug's name was pronounced "smog"—but actually it's pronounced as "smowg". Who knew?_

 _*Shire Reckoning._

* * *

The alarm on her cell phone began to blare loudly at approximately five in the morning, before the sun had even thought about raising itself over the horizon. Marcelle viciously fought off the grip of sleep and rose from her bed.

Shrugging on her housecoat, she gathered up the clothes she would be wearing that day and stepped out of her bedroom. Out in the hall, she discovered that the dwarves were already up and were nearly ready to depart.

Fighting embarrassment at being caught in nothing but her nightgown and housecoat, she quickly made her way down to the bathroom and slipped inside before anyone could occupy it.

There were embers in the small fireplace there, which she used to stoke up another fire after she placed a couple logs on them. She then ran the faucet until she could get the water as warm as possible—which ended up being lukewarm due to whatever the dwarves did to the plumbing the night before. She wrinkled her nose at this, but decided that it would have to do since she couldn't keep others from using the bathroom while she waited for hot water.

 _You can do this, Marcelle,_ she told herself as she watched the water fill Bilbo's claw-foot tub. _You can handle lukewarm water. From now on, until you stop in towns and villages along the way, you'll probably bathe in freezing-cold rivers or streams._

She quickly stripped and slipped into the tub. She soaked her hair and scrubbed it with soap. She rinsed it out before she scrubbed herself down. She was done bathing herself in record time, and when she climbed out of the tub, it took her less than a minute to dry herself. She patted as much water out of her hair that she could before she dressed.

Marcelle pulled on the trousers she had made for herself only the month before and pulled the blue shirt she had been wearing when she first came to the Shire over her head. The shirt was extremely baggy now, but it would still make a great travelling shirt, and the pants almost needed a belt. She could probably make one out of cloth and tuck it away for when life on the road deemed it fit to take its toll on her.

As she watched herself brush her hair in the bathroom mirror, she couldn't help but think back to when her mother used to chastise her about being unprepared for when the family travelled. Marcelle knew her mother only did it because she was trying to teach her to not be tardy, because it would only hinder her when she went out on her own.

With a determined look, Marcelle said to herself, "I _won't_ let you down, Mom!" She then vacated the bathroom, taking her nightclothes with her.

She made a bee-line to her bedroom, hoping to make it there without having to talk to anyone. She passed Bombur, Bifur, and Nori in the hall, but they were too busy going over their things to take notice of her. She almost made it to her room but was stopped just seconds before she could touch the doorknob.

"Excuse me, miss?" Marcelle straightened from her half-crouched position and turned to look at the owner of the voice. She blinked in surprise when she saw that it was Ori, the youngest dwarf.

"Yes?"

He hesitated for a moment. "I was just wondering…how do you know Mr. Baggins?" he asked.

Marcelle's eyebrows rose in surprise at this question. Of all questions he could have asked, it was this one. She could see all the assumptions swimming behind Ori's eyes as if they were being said aloud. 'Is she Bilbo's wife? She's awfully tall for a hobbit, or is she of Man?', 'If she's of Man, how did she come to know Mr. Baggins when it seems he's never strayed too far from his home?' They went on and on.

She shifted her grip on the clothes in her hands. "He is a friend," she told him. "He's helping me out until I find a way home." Now that she had answered his question, she turned back to the door and went to go into her room.

"Are you lost, then?"

Ori's new question halted her in her tracks once more, and she let out a quiet sigh. Again, she turned back to the dwarf. "If you really want to know, yes I am, Mr. Ori. I'm lost, and there's no possible way, from what I can see, that I can get home. The only way I can see if I could is if I stumble upon it."

Despite his excitement and extroverted-ness the night before, the look of concern that settled in his eyes let her know that he was more 3D in character than she first believed. But she didn't allow herself to dwell on it, and quickly disappeared into her room.

After making her bed and leaving her nightclothes at the end of it, she went about making herself a list of provisions she would need. She then packed a rugsack with the things she felt she would want to bring along. She pulled her copy of _The Hobbit_ out from under her mattress and wrapped it with a piece of scrap cloth before tucking it into the rugsack first. If she left it here, and she either died on the way to the Lonely Mountain or made it back home, the last thing she needed was for Bilbo to find it when he got back.

She made sure that she packed the toque and the fingerless gloves she had knit for herself over the last winter, knowing that the journey would last long and would take them to many different places. And it would definitely be crisp and cool by the time they made it to the mountain, so she didn't want to take any chances.

By the time she was done the dwarves were marching out the door, and the last one to go was Gandalf. She met him in the foyer, and gave him a brave smile as she slung the rugsack up onto her back. "Don't worry, I'll wake Bilbo," she told him as she zipped her purple boots up. "I just need to run out and get some provisions."

She went to go out the door, but Gandalf gently rested a hand on her shoulder, causing her to stop. She looked back up at him as he fixed her with a stern look. "I hope you know what you are doing, young lady," he said.

Without blinking, she replied, "I know exactly what I'm doing, sir." She then gently picked the hand up from her shoulder and let it drop before she disappeared outside.

* * *

Marcelle jogged down into the marketplace and saw that, by this hour, only a few stalls had been set up. The sun hovered low over the horizon, bathing the countryside with pale light. The grass sparkled with dew, and there was a nip in the air.

She stopped by the meat stall first, and purchased some salted and smoked strips of meat. She then went to the bread stall and purchased a few small loaves. She made her circle of the market, and finally came to Farmer Dogwood's stall. He had just finished setting out his wares.

"Hullo, Farmer Dogwood!" she greeted cheerfully, teasingly adopting the Hobbiton accent for a moment.

"Well, hello, Miss Bowman!" Dogwood returned, smiling wide. She watched as he gave her an once-over. "My, are you going somewhere?"

Marcelle couldn't help but compress her smile into a closed-mouth grin. "Well, yes, yes I am."

"Have you finally found out where your family is?" he asked, hope shining in his eyes. Marcelle had told him once, when she first met him, that she was looking for her family. He had been curious as to why a Big Folk had been walking about Hobbiton. She was going to miss him.

"Well…" she began, stretching out the word as she searched for an appropriate answer. With a shrug, she continued, "not really, unfortunately. But I finally figured after seven months of waiting that, well, I had to go look for them myself." She looked up and around, taking in the hobbit-holes and the low, one-story buildings scattered about. It wasn't until then that she realized how much she'd miss living in Hobbiton—even despite her occasional run-ins with Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

"That's a shame," Dogwood admitted with a sad nod. "The children will miss you so."

"The same."

After a moment, the hobbit sighed and aimed another smile up at her. "Well, would you like anything, or did you just come to say goodbye?"

"Yes, I need some cheese," she told him. She took a moment to peruse his selection. There was some cheddar, what she would have called Swiss but the hobbits called it Buckley because it was made by the Brandybucks along the Brandywine, and there was some cheddar with herbs mixed in. She decided on buying bits from all three.

She opened her mouth to tell Dogwood what she wanted, but she paused when someone stepped up beside her, casting a shadow that blended with hers and made it larger, much larger. Dogwood suddenly found himself standing in shadow, and a look of distrust and nervousness appeared on his face. Marcelle's heart began to race as she perceived the size of who was now standing next to her, and from what she could see, he was no hobbit.

Slowly, Marcelle took a step away and turned to look at him. Swallowing, her eyes widened as she recognised who it was. _It's the man from the market and my dream!_ she cried inside as she fought to keep her face straight. Her eyebrows and her chin trembled in her effort.

Golden eyes stared down at her as the man stood with his hands folded behind his back, just like when she first met him. Marcelle sucked in a deep breath as she heard the market go quiet behind at the sight of someone even taller than her.

"What…do you want?" she managed to breathe. She fought to regain control over her body, and when she did, she reached over and dropped enough coin onto the table in front of Dogwood to buy the cheese that she wanted. She quickly scooped up a small brick of cheddar, herb, and Buckley cheeses, before she turned and walked away. "Goodbye, Farmer Dogwood!" she called as she tried to get some distance between her and the man.

"Um, goodbye, Miss Bowman!"

But he was not so easily shaken. With his long legs he easily kept up with her.

Outside the market, and out of view of the hobbits, Marcelle finally stopped and turned to face him, barely being able to hold it together. "What do you _want_?" she repeated, trying to sound strong even though she was sure she was visibly shaking now.

"You are going on an adventure," he said instead of answering her.

Marcelle glowered at him, not pleased that he chose now, of all times, to pester her when she was late. "Yes! I'm going on an adventure! An adventure I won't be going on if you hold me up!" she slipped the rugsack off her shoulders and stuffed the cheese in with the rest of the provisions she had bought.

It wasn't until she swung the rugsack back onto her back and turned to walk away that the man spoke again. "My name is Ouglír, and I have come to you again because I believe you can help me in my plight."

Marcelle blinked. "Ow…gleer?" she echoed as she turned to face him after only walking a couple steps away. She frowned deeply, to the point that it felt her expression would be locked that way forever. "Ouglír, why would you come to me for help? I'm a girl, and you're a man. I'm not even sure I'll be able to go on this adventure _because_ I'm a girl, so don't hinge your needed help on that—if that's what you're doing."

Ouglír held out a belt with a sheath holding a long knife to it. "You need not worry. You are more resilient than you know."

Marcelle found herself taking the knife from him despite her desire to reject it. It would have been considered a sword if it was in, say, a hobbit's hands, she couldn't help but muse.

"You need to keep this knife safe. It is hard to break, thus it won't shatter if you accidentally drop it from a great height. But, I must warn you—if you use it to defend yourself, if you use it like you would with a _normal_ weapon, it will become tainted, and it will not work when you use it for its intended purpose."

Marcelle didn't like where this was going. Here she was, ready to return to Bag End and wake Bilbo so he could sign his contract and go on his adventure, and she felt as if this man was pushing this… this… _duty_ on her. She wanted to yell at him and tell him to shove off, but instead, she found herself asking, "What is this blade's purpose, then?"

"Its name is Fenumërún—use it to slay the dragon, and you will set me free," was the strange man's odd reply.

Marcelle managed to level Ouglír with a flat look, mixed with a bit of 'are you kidding me?' and 'are you for real?' She resisted the temptation to bite down on her tongue in hopes that she'd end up awaking in her bed in Bag End having just dreamt up what had happened that morning. "So, let me get this straight," she voiced, incredulous. "You want _me_ , a woman, who hasn't really gone hiking for more than a day, ever, to traipse across Middle-Earth in order to slay a dragon with _your_ dagger? Who says I won't return home half-way through the journey?"

"You wish to go on this adventure despite your apparent lack of experience," he retorted. "And you won't return home during the journey."

" _What_ makes you so _sure_?!" she spat. She quickly brought the belt around her and buckled it together so it would rest on her hips. Sending another glare Ouglír's way, she hissed, "I won't waste my time asking how you ended up needing a dragon dead so that you can go on your merry way, but I've got to get going. I need to buy a pony, and go wake up my friend. So if you don't mind, stop terrorizing the local population with your stature and be on your way!"

She turned and marched up the hill, the knife tapping against her left hip as she sought out the local livery. Eventually, she found it.

The livery was a squat barn, with only one level. There was no loft, and the front entrance was so short that she found herself bending at the waist in order to fit through. Inside was darker, with shafts of light cutting down through the air from the sloped ceiling like lasers. Several stalls lined the central aisle, but not every one of them was occupied. _I hope I can find a pony that is big enough for me,_ she worried.

Marcelle had many different experiences while riding as she grew up. Once she rode a very tall horse at summer camp in a saddle that was too small for her, making her feel as if she was being pressed together by a clamp. Another time she rode a pony too short for her, which made the stirrups have to be too short, and her knees killed her for the rest of the day after.

She didn't doubt that she would run into the saddle problem again, she just hoped that she could find a pony tall enough for her so she didn't end up harming the poor thing in the end.

"Hello?" she called as she forced herself to relax. Ouglír had definitely thrown a wrench into the works, but she didn't need to accidently unleash her frustration from their meeting on some unsuspecting hobbit. If she ended scaring them, she probably wouldn't get a pony.

A moment later, a hobbit-man appeared at the far end of the aisle and quickly made his way towards her. "Hullo! How may I help you, Miss Bowman?" he greeted. It was Sigismond Took, and he was a hobbit she didn't know very well. If she was correct, she only met him once, and it was when she caught a pony that was trying to make a run for it and in the process nearly ran over her. She never really introduced herself, but she had learned long ago that word traveled fast in Hobbiton.

"Mr. Took!" she greeted in return, putting on her best smile in hopes of hiding the mess of emotions that were whirling about in her. "I would like to see if I could buy one of your ponies."

The Took brightened at this. "Well, you're in luck, my dear, for I have a couple that I may be able to give up. You're welcome to take a look!"

"Thank you." She followed him to two stalls that sat side-by-side, and two ponies hung their heads out over their doors. Marcelle knew they did so in hopes of finding a treat.

The pony on the left was a grey pony about 13 and a half hands high, while the pony on the right was a bay with a star on her forehead, and was about 14 hands high. Marcelle once rode a pony that was 14 hands high and she was rather enjoyable to ride, so she chose the bay mare.

"Practical choice, m'dear," Sigismond commented as he brought down the mare's halter from its hook on her door. Marcelle watched as he slipped into the mare's stall and slipped the halter onto her head. As he lead the mare out of the stall, he said, "This mare's name is Buttercup." He handed Marcelle 'Buttercup's lead. "I hope you take care of her while you're on the road, Miss Bowman."

Marcelle nodded. "She is a precious creature, and I will never do anything to intentionally harm her."

The young woman left the livery half an hour later with Buttercup in tow, after Sigismond sold her a suitable saddle and taught her how to secure it properly to Buttercup. The saddles here were much, much different than the Western saddles she had grown up with.

Marcelle tied Buttercup's lead to a tree just outside Hobbiton's south gate, and then began to make her way back up to Bag End at a jog. Tying Buttercup there made it easier to go get Bilbo because, by the time they got going, she was sure the streets would be full of hobbits and it would be nearly impossible to ride out of town.

* * *

Marcelle couldn't help but stop outside the gate and stare up at Bag End's front door. This was it. This would probably be the last time she would ever lay eyes on that round green door with its brass knob. She would probably never look out those round windows and out over Hobbiton ever again.

She was leaving a part of her life behind, one she wasn't going to come back to. Slipping her phone from her pocket, she turned it on and took a picture. Marcelle was determined to never forget the home she had in Bag End, or the man who had taken her in.

This reminded her that she had to get Bilbo out of bed and ready, and that she had a few more things to pack. She quickly hopped over the gate, trotted up to the door and entered.

"Bilbo! …Bilbo?" the hobbit-hole was silent as a grave, telling her that Bilbo was still asleep. Yells that could wake the dead would not wake Bilbo if he was in a deep sleep, as she had learned. She quickly jogged to the back of the smial and entered Bilbo's bedroom.

Bilbo was stretched across the end of his bed with one arm tucked under his head. His eyes were blinking wildly when she entered, but it took a few moments before they were open and focused on her.

"Good morning, Bilbo," Marcelle greeted as she waited for him to sit up.

He got to his feet as he wished a good morning in return. "A little early, don't you think?" he commented.

Marcelle planted her hands on her hips as her hobbit friend drifted out into the hall. "It's eight in the morning, Mr. Baggins," she informed. "You've already missed first breakfast."

"Oh," was all he seemed to be able to say.

Marcelle followed him throughout the smial as Bilbo struggled to recall what happened the night before, before he began to check to see if there were any dwarves still there. Once he was sure it was just Marcelle and himself, he pumped his right arm in triumph. He then turned and aimed a smile of relief up at her. "They're gone!"

She couldn't help but nod. "Yes, they left at around seven."

"You were up that early? After last night?" he seemed to be genuinely surprised.

She nodded again. "Yep. I was up getting ready for the day. I've already gone to town, gotten supplies, and bought a pony." Bilbo seemed to tense up at this, and he stared at her with wide eyes.

Finally, "You…y-you're leaving?" he sounded genuinely heartbroken.

Marcelle let out a sigh and sank down to her knees so that she could be more on her friend's level. "Bilbo…" she started. "Last night, when the dwarves were here, I came to the conclusion that… that if I don't go and search for my family, for a way back to where I came from, I'll…never go back. If I don't look, I'll never go back." Unbidden, tears started to well up in her eyes when she saw the shattered look in his. "It's obvious that you don't want to go on this adventure, but accompanying the dwarves seems like the best way I'll be able to travel across Middle-Earth without being alone, or vulnerable."

Suddenly, she found herself being hugged. It had been a while since she had been hugged, and it came as a surprise. But it wasn't unwelcome. "I'm going to miss you," she whispered as she eventually pulled out of the hug.

She rose to her feet and walked to her room, where she packed up her father's compound bow. For fun over the winter, she had challenged herself to make a sling for the bow so it would be easy to pull it out if she had to. The bow had come with six arrows that were built to withstand the tension of the bow, and they were clipped to it. She then rolled her plum-purple winter jacket as tightly as she could and tied it to the top of her rugsack, next to the thin blanket that was her bedroll. It was almost too much for the thin straps there. _Looks like I'll have to secure my jacket to the back of my saddle when I can._

With her bow-sling hanging from her rugsack, the rugsack secured to her back, and a heavy heart, Marcelle slowly made her way back to the foyer while making sure her glasses were on her nose. She took in the wood-paneled walls, and touched the roots that came down from the ceiling as she went by. She would miss this place terribly.

When she reached the foyer, she blinked in surprise. Standing there, standing as straight as his short, four foot one or two inches allowed, was Bilbo, dressed in his red coat, his rugsack hanging from his shoulders, and the contract in his hand. Marcelle's face lit up as Bilbo smiled bravely to her.

"You're…coming? Truly?" Marcelle couldn't believe it. She had surely believed that this Bilbo would have put his foot down and never reconsidered the offer.

Bilbo shuffled his feet a little. With a shrug, he replied, "Well, they need a burglar…" his cheeks then became slightly rosy. "And…well…I-I couldn't willingly l-let you go out there on your own, without my supervision…"

This time, it was Marcelle who hugged him.

* * *

Bilbo barely focused long enough to shut the door behind them as they burst outside and took off down Bagshot Row. Marcelle couldn't help but smile openly, baring all teeth, as they charged down the path. Bilbo took the lead and lead her down a winding grass path until they came to a fence, which he vaulted over with no hesitation.

Marcelle pushed off the ground and jumped as high as she could go, clearing the fence with an inch to spare. She hit the ground running and with a whoop of excitement.

The contract in Bilbo's hand stretched out and fluttered behind him as they ran down the field and past farmers and a hobbit-woman doing her laundry. They then jumped another fence and took off down a well-worn road.

"Mr. Bilbo, where're you off to?" a hobbit cried after them.

"I'm late! I'm going on an adventure!" Bilbo called back without looking over his shoulder.

Marcelle slowed when she neared where she tied Buttercup, and quickly transferred her winter jacket to the back of the saddle as Bilbo continued to run. She then untied the mare's lead and secured the end of it to the pommel of the saddle before putting her foot into the stirrup. She swung up into the saddle and urged Buttercup to trot after Bilbo once the reins were solidly in her hands.

They caught up with the dwarves just outside Bywater, and by that time, Bilbo was quite out of breath. Marcelle couldn't help but sigh and shake her head. She had offered for him to ride with her, but he had refused.

"Wait! _Wait_!" he hollered as he ran the last few meters as fast as his large feet and fatigue would allow.

The whole group halted their ponies and as one, turned to look back at Bilbo. Marcelle let Buttercup walk up the path until she was just under three pony-lengths away from the pony at the back of the Company.

Ori noticed her behind them as Bilbo rushed up to Balin and handed him the contract. He waved cheerfully to her, and she couldn't help but wave and smile in return. She was pretty sure that he'd grow on her if she managed to convince them to let her come along.

"Well, Master Baggins," Balin said as he folded the contract up and pocketed it. "Welcome to the company of Thorin Oakenshield."

"Give him a pony," Thorin ordered from where he sat on his pony at the front of the group.

Marcelle saw that they were going to continue on, and scrambled to arrange the words she wanted to say in her mind. She urged Buttercup forward and came alongside Balin.

"Mr. Balin," she said, trying to make her voice sound strong and confident. The company began to move, continuing on their journey even as she rode beside them. Behind her, she heard Bilbo get scooped up and placed on one of the pack-ponies. "I would like a word."

The old dwarf aimed a kind smile at her. "What do you need, my dear?"

"Well…um," her brain threatened to stall, "I would like to request that I come with you," she hastened to say. _Say something to make it sound like you have a reason to come,_ she coached. _But say what? Should I make something up or tell them the truth?_ "I have a reason why I'm asking this—" she was cut off.

"We cannot be bothered with women whom desire to run away from their lives!" Thorin growled, having overheard what she had said..

For a moment, her voicebox closed in on itself. Thorin intimidated her, and he knew it. Marcelle's eyebrows furrowed at his comment, and if she could have shot lasers from her eyes, her glare would have burned twin holes through the back of his head. Her personality called for her to shut up and bend to his wishes, but her desire to get back home overrode it and drove her to clear her throat angrily. She urged Buttercup to up into a trot again so that she could come up beside the proud dwarf.

"I am not some _woman_ running away from a life I deemed boring or 'not for me', Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, _exiled_ king of Erebor!" she couldn't help but jab at him using the names of his father, grandfather, and social standing, something of which she had not been told but had read in _The Hobbit_. She knew it was wrong to jab at him like that, since she didn't know him and it was probably akin to someone poking at his emotions with a red-hot iron-poker, but she wanted to say her point without being interrupted.

She wanted to let him know that she didn't appreciate being interrupted and treated like she was the social equivalent to the gum on the bottom of someone's shoe. Or, in Middle-Earth, the dirt on which people walked.

"As I was saying," she continued after heaving a sigh to smooth out her nerves and stamp down on her anger. "I'm asking because I am searching for a way home. I've thought about this long and hard, and the only way I can get home is if I travel around looking for it. And I cannot do that alone! Not with how the world is, where the roads are unsafe unless you travel in large groups!"

Thorin aimed a glare that burned with irritation at her strong words. Marcelle met his icy blue glare with her hazel one, and fought to not look away, to not back down. _Not now. I've cowered before those with stronger personalities before, but not today! I don't care if I never talk to this dwarf again, or if I feel anxiety for the rest of the trip. I'm coming. And if I have to tail them, so be it!_

"Thorin, I'd advise that you think about her words," Gandalf advised from behind them.

Marcelle decided to add a little sugar to what she had said before. "You won't have to worry about me—I bought my own supplies, and that includes food and water, so you won't have to worry about taking from your stores to feed me. I'll just be a shadow. I'll take care of myself."

Thorin stared at her with that same probing look from the night before, as if he was scanning her to see if she was worth it. He eyed her father's compound bow from where it hung from her rugsack. "Can you even draw your bow?" he questioned.

Marcelle straightened in the saddle and tilted her head back in order to look down her nose at him. "I've practiced. Hobbits have terrific aim, and some members of the Took clan took it upon themselves to teach me and get me used to drawing my bow*," she answered, her tone as aloof as she could manage. She didn't mention the fact that she had poor aim, and had a track-record of missing the target 65% of the time. And she didn't even want to think about mentioning how she got an arrow stuck so deeply into the tree once that it took her and two hobbit-men almost half an hour to get it back out of the tree's trunk.

After a few moments more, the dwarf _humph_ ed. Marcelle waited in tense silence broken only by the beat of the ponies' hooves for an answer.

Finally, "We cannot afford to look out an amateur-explorer! You cannot come with us," he told her, putting his metaphorical foot down.

Bilbo heard this. "Excuse me!" he didn't ride closer to them because he wasn't quite sure how to control his pony. "But if she can't come, then I'm afraid you no longer have a burglar!"

Thorin swivelled around and fixed Bilbo with a stare that clearly said "stay out of this".

"I can handle this, Mr. Baggins!" Marcelle rebuked. The last thing she needed was for _Thorin_ to believe that she couldn't take care of herself. She squared her shoulders and fixed Thorin with a look that she hoped told him that she meant business. Then, she said something that, in the end, she was quite shocked to hear coming from her mouth. "If you will not let me come with you, I will follow you just far enough behind you to irritate you. And if I am attacked by something, you will be privy to the sound of my dying shrieks!"

There was a look of disbelief in Thorin's eyes. The tiny, wicked part of her reared its head as she urged all her frustration to leave her expression. "And when you listen to me die. I just want to let you know that that won't be the last that you would hear from me. Do you believe in ghosts, Thorin Oakenshield?" And with that, she stopped speaking.

She slowed Buttercup enough that she soon found herself at the back of the group, as far as it was humanly possible to be away from Thorin without leaving the Company, and let Buttercup settle into a comfortable walk next to Ori's pony.

"You really shouldn't bother him like that, Miss Bowman," Ori piped up, taking care to keep his voice low.

Marcelle couldn't help but bite her lower lip. "I know," was all she was able to say.

* * *

 ***I'm hoping to write a short side-story where I focus a bit more on her life in Hobbiton. The arrow incident is something I want to expand on.**

* * *

 **Honestly, Marcelle wrote herself for most of this chapter. She was almost out of control, resulting in some editing, lol. But it's in her personality to be slightly dramatic when she's upset or mad at someone.**

 **And, I changed the summary of the story. Do you think it's better than before?**

* * *

 **SethadoreVGC:** I'm glad you're liking it so far! Thanks for being patient. :)


	8. To Make Amends, Or Try To

**Hey, guys, I'm back with a chapter to help tie you guys over until I can start updating normally. Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm so glad you are enjoying the story so far! The reason why there's no review replies at the bottom of the chapter this time is because I went to save the document, but since I didn't have any internet, it was all wiped. But I read all your reviews and they gave me joy! Thank you!**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own the Company, Bilbo, or Middle-Earth. I only own Marcelle and her seemingly emotional instability, lol.

* * *

8 – **To Make Amends, Or Try To** – 8

It didn't take her very long before she began to regret how she had spoken to Thorin. As Hobbiton began to become farther and farther behind them, the more tense she began to feel. What would stop him from waiting until they were hundreds of kilometers away from Bag End to dump her? She didn't doubt that his conscience would stop him from doing out of mere spite, just to test her and her "independence" as a woman of Man.

Her teeth ground away at her bottom lip as she rode in silence, never moving from her place next to Ori at the back of the line. Occasionally, Buttercup would nod her head or try to sneak in a bite of grass, but Marcelle managed to keep her from doing it while she managed to keep her mind from wandering. Marcelle watched the back of Bilbo's head as he rode his pony alongside Gandalf as she prayed for strength.

Most of the time she spent tightening and then loosening her grip on the reigns. Her over-active imagination played several situations involving Thorin leaving her behind—from him yelling at her before leaving her behind, him ordering the company to move out while she was still asleep, to him backhanding her for defying his orders. She couldn't help but shudder at the last one, even though her sensible-side told her that it wasn't likely that he would ever go to that extreme.

Her thoughts gnawed at her throughout the first day, and did not leave her alone even when they found a place to stop at for the night.

Gloin threw down a stack of kindling and branches and went about setting up a fire. Marcelle quietly went about relieving her pony of her burden, unsaddling her before putting her with the rest of the ponies. She set her tack, winter jacket, and rugsack off to the side, being careful to keep her gaze set on the ground. She was afraid to look any of the dwarves in the eye, no longer as bold as she was when they were just outside Bywater.

Marcelle spotted Bilbo setting his bedroll down not too far from the fire. He rolled it out before he sat down, and she soon found herself doing the same.

By this time, the dwarves were shuffling around, trying to figure out who would sit where. Marcelle observed through her eyelashes, her nerves preventing her from looking at any of them directly. _What have I gotten myself into?_ she asked herself. _Where is that courage and conviction I had before?_ She felt empty and small now.

After a while, Marcelle found herself muttering, "Why did I have to be so bold? What have I gotten myself into?"

Her worried mutterings stopped when she felt a hand rest on her elbow. She glanced down and saw that it belonged to Bilbo. He looked up at her with a look of worry, but all she could do was sigh and pet his hand with her own. "I'm fine," she assured him.

"No you are not," he whispered back.

Marcelle looked at him with widened eyes, before she pursed her lips, furrowed her eyebrows, and cast her gaze down to the bedroll under her. Then, arching her eyebrows, she managed to admit in a small voice, "I'm…afraid."

"You should be," a gruff voice spoke up, alerting her to the fact that she hadn't spoken quietly enough to keep unwanted ears from hearing. Marcelle's gaze shot up and she found herself gazing into Thorin's intimidating blue eyes. "The wilds are no place for your kind," he said as he walked over to the log that had been rolled over to the fire.

 _'My kind'?! Why that—_ Marcelle's eyebrows furrowed as her temper shot up to the breaking point instantaneously. She tried to stamp down on it, and her conscience screamed at her not to act on it—but she had had enough. She felt that if she didn't, she'd one day end up punching the dwarf in the face.

All trace of fear she had been feeling then was gone. "I'll have you know that I can take care of myself, Mr. Oakenshield. I was merely telling Mr. Baggins that I was _ashamed_ of how I behaved this morning! That I was afraid to approach you and say I was sorry!" She climbed to her feet and shot the dwarf a heated glare before she stomped off to the edge of the firelight's reach.

She turned her back on those gathering around the fire and crossed her arms. _Men,_ she sneered. The whole situation made her think back to how she preferred the company of her family and a few select friends due to the fact that the boys she could see roaming her town and the ones she knew only in passing were stupid and bigoted. And girls tended to be nasty, _nasty_ creatures.

And it seemed that here the men were even more bigoted than they were at home. From what she had learned in history class and what she had read in historical fiction, women were treated as second-class citizens and were viewed as being good at nothing more than keeping house and taking care of the children—right up until not long before her mother was born, if she was correct.

She let out a long, slow sigh and bit her bottom lip. _Why am I reacting to this so strongly?_ she wondered. She knew why—she was desperate to get back home, and if she just rolled over and took it from Thorin, she'd never get anywhere. She didn't have the skills needed to protect herself, and she had no idea what she would face if she went out on her own. She knew of wolves, coyotes, cougars, and bears—but there were also wargs and goblins and a host of other deadly creatures that would, quite possibly, love to make a meal out of her.

Marcelle couldn't help but shudder at that.

"Pardon me, lass?" Balin's sudden appearance at her side made her jump.

She couldn't help but blink several times as she recovered. "Balin?"

"Indeed," the kind old dwarf replied with a slight crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

Marcelle pressed a hand to her chest as she took a few breaths to calm her startled heart. "I'm sorry, you just startled me." She sat down a small fallen tree and stared off into the darkness.

Balin joined her on her perch.

A few moments of silence passed between them as the Company's chatter drifted over to them. Marcelle stared into the dark and tried desperately to not imagine a pair of very realistic eyes staring back at her out of the darkness.

"You know, lass," Balin eventually stated, "I couldn't help but notice how flustered you became at Thorin's comment."

 _Thorin's_ snide _comment,_ Marcelle couldn't help but inwardly correct as she raised an eyebrow at the elder dwarf. "Let me say this: I got what he said about how the wilds are not safe for those of the fairer…kind, Mr. Balin," she huffed. "It's not safe for _anyone_ , if you ask me." She nervously began picking at the knees of her pants as she pursed her lips. "I was just upset at what he implied—that I was afraid because I was out here, as if I wasn't surrounded by dwarves. _That's_ what made me angry. I am not weak."

"But you are not strong, either," Balin pointed out gently as he looked her over. "You are hardly anything more than skin and bone! What pushed you to demand that you come with us?" was that concern shining in his eyes?

Marcelle hugged herself and rubbed her upper arms as a chill set in. She wasn't just skin and bones—there was still enough of her that it would be a while before anything would show through. "To put it simply: I'm looking for a way to get back to my family," she finally replied. She couldn't keep herself from imagining how her family must be still searching for her even after any help would have left them. It made her heart ache.

Balin was only quiet for a moment. "Well, are they not in the Shire?"

Marcelle shook her head as she pushed back the tears. "No." Another sigh, albeit shaky, escaped her. "I-I'm not from the Shire, you see. I'm from…somewhere else. A-and I didn't find a way back in the Shire, so I have to go out and find my way back."

She didn't say anything after that and she scooted a few inches away from him. She really didn't know what to think about this situation. Was Balin asking about why she was there because he genuine cared, or just so he had something to tell Thorin? She risked a quick glance at him.

 _Stop being so defensive, Marcelle!_ half of her chastised.

 _I don't know how,_ she realised. _I don't trust Balin—I don't trust anyone but Bilbo and maybe Gandalf. Not here, anyway._

"Family is a very important part in anyone's lives, lass," Balin said, startling her out of her thoughts. "Take Thorin for example. He probably wouldn't want me to tell you, but… Anyway, one of the reasons we are going to the Lonely Mountain is for his family."

"And…the other reason is so…you will get your home back," Marcelle couldn't help but with a small, sad smile. She stood to her feet and took a step forward. She stared off into the darkness and allowed her mind to wander as she waited for Balin to respond.

 _Mom, would you lie down and take it if someone didn't want you to tag along when you wanted protection while you searched for a way home?_

"…How far away from the Shire are you from?" Balin asked cautiously.

Marcelle turned to look at him and shrugged lightly. "I don't know." She sat down and faced him. "One moment I was going about my business, going home from where I worked, when I suddenly found myself waking up in one of Bilbo's guestrooms. All I know is that I'm not from the Shire and that where I come from doesn't appear to be anywhere in or near Middle-Earth." Though Balin's face was calm and didn't show any form of incredulity, Marcelle could see it in his dark eyes. She shook her head and waved her hand. "Never mind. Bilbo didn't believe me when I told him. Only Gandalf seems to have believed me—but he's a wizard. Who knows what he's seen or thinks?"

"All you know is that you're from far away, correct?"

Marcelle nodded. Balin hadn't called her crazy yet… "And I need to get back," she insisted. "And _you_ need to get your mountain back." She didn't feel like mentioning that someone wanted her to get to the mountain so that she could slay _Smaug_.

 _On that note, how am I supposed to slay Smaug? Do I have "dame" or "knight" stamped on my back?_

"I'll also try to not be a bother—and maybe I'll get a chance to be helpful along the way," she added. She felt like she was trying to bargain with her right to continue on with the Company, and that she was trying to bargain with the wrong person.

"I know you mean well, lass, but it is all up to what Thorin says," Balin said before he got to his feet and walked back to the campfire.

* * *

The next morning, Marcelle cracked her eyes open to the sky beginning to lighten in the east. For a moment, she couldn't move as her muscles and her back protested.

The last time she remembered feeling like this was when she slept over at a friend's house for their birthday and woke up to find the inflatable mattress she had been sleeping on had deflated in her sleep, leaving her to rest on the hard ground.

With an unheeded groan, Marcelle sat up and saw that the dwarves were beginning to stir. Bilbo slept on next to her, snoring quietly.

Bombur was the next to sit up, and quickly he was on his feet. For a moment, Marcelle watched as he brought out a frying pan and some meat. Out of curiosity, Marcelle rolled to her feet and watched, hesitant to approach him.

 _He might need some help,_ she reasoned with herself. _He has to cook for fifteen people._

Slowly, she sucked in a deep breath. She held it for a moment before she slowly let it out as quietly as she could. Then she tiptoed up to the fire, relying on the light steps she had learned to make in the presence of hobbits (hobbits were skittish folk. Marcelle suspected that half the reason they were wary of/didn't like Men was because of how heavily they walked). She made sure to not step on Bilbo or any of the dwarves on her way to the fire, which was now crackling and snapping happily.

"Would you like some help, Master Dwarf?" she whispered just loud enough as she came to stand by the fire.

The round dwarf paused and looked up at her in surprise. She simply stood there and forced herself to keep smiling. "There are a lot of mouths to feed," she noted.

Ten minutes later, after Bombur finally consented, Marcelle found herself simmering pan bread in a skillet. She hummed a little tune, feeling merry despite the fact that her back occasionally reminded her how hard her bed had been by smarting.

As the edges began to golden, Marcelle took the flat piece of wood that served as a flipper and flipped the pan bread over. At the renewed sizzling and the accumulation of breakfast's aroma, the rest of the dwarves began to awake.

The first to stumble over to the fire was Dwalin. As he sat down on the log there, Marcelle sent him a smile before returning her attention to the meal. Everyone was sitting around the fire by the time the second batch of pan bread was finished cooking.

Marcelle left the skillet on the fire in order to let the heat reduce the crumbs to ashes, and went over to where she left her pack.

She sank down onto her bedroll and pulled her rugsack onto her lap. She rifled through her provisions until she settled on a meager breakfast of a bit of Buckley cheese, a strip of salted bacon, and a small chunk of bread. She made sure to turn her attention away from the group of dwarves and her friend as she looked out over the surrounding countryside.

 _I really should apologise to Thorin for flying off the handle at him like I did,_ she mused. But then she furrowed her brow. _Though, I probably won't get an apology for the sneers he sent my way. It was his comments that made me so angry in the first place._ In the end, she let out a heated sigh and focused on finishing her breakfast.

 _How should I handle this?_ she mused as she chewed on a piece of bread and cheese. She knew that she would not be able to find mental rest until she apologised. _Even if I don't want to do it, I have to. Mom would say that I do it because then it would be a show of courage and strength._ Her stomach turned at the thought of grovelling at Thorin's feet and she found that she was unable to eat the rest of her tiny breakfast.

Standing, she brushed the crumbs from her front before she turned to face the dwarves crowded around the fire. The sun shone pale light onto their backs, highlighting their dwarven garb. Thorin was sitting across the fire, facing her way even though he was staring into the flames, deep in thought.

Stepping over the log through a space between two dwarves, Marcelle came to stand beside the fire once again. She hesitated for a moment, then quietly cleared her throat. "Thorin." She made sure to address him without accidently making his name sound like it was coming out as an inquiry.

This visibly broke Thorin out of his thoughts, and chatter around the campfire stilled. When his icy blue irises lifted to meet her gaze, she took a deep breath. "Yes?" he responded.

Marcelle bit the inside of her cheek for only a fraction of a second before she bravely opened her mouth. "Sir, I've…" she was hyper-aware of the eyes that were on her. "I've…come to apologise for my attitude and behaviour yesterday." She then cast her gaze down at the fire and watched it as she braced for Thorin's reaction.

There was nothing. No word. No sneer. No physical contact. Nothing.

Hesitating again, she slowly lifted her head again until she was looking him in the eye once more. There was only a slight furrowing of his eyebrow. She sighed. "I had no right to yell at you like I did," Marcelle continued. She stood there for a few moments after she had finished, hoping that she might hear something in return, but nothing came. She sighed again, but this time in defeat, before she turned and left the campfire circle.

She spent the rest of the time they were encamped there packing up before she saddled Buttercup and made sure her jacket was secured to the back of the saddle. She made sure the long knife Ouglír had entrusted to her hung by her hip and that the belt was snug around her waist when the dwarves began to mount, and soon she was up on her pony's back.

For a moment, she fought back tears as memories of her times riding Raina came rushing back to her. It hadn't occurred to her how much she missed riding her horse until now, when anger didn't currently ablaze within her heart. She sat in the saddle and pressed her free fist into her hip as she fought to keep her emotions under control. She tried to not sniff or whimper, lest she catch unwanted attention.

She remained quiet. She bit down on her bottom lip hard enough that she was afraid that she was about to draw blood—but the pain distracted her from the ache in her chest. _This is failure I'm feeling, isn't it?_ she let out a quiet sigh. _I'm sorry, Mom. I'm not as personable as I thought._

It wasn't long before the Company set out, leaving Marcelle to plod along like the loose cannon she thought she was. Or third-wheel—whatever term of phrase that would fit here. Ori positioned himself on his pony next to her and attempted to engage her in conversation.

"You don't have to worry, Miss Bowman," he tried to assure. "Thorin is like that. He doesn't find it very… well he struggles with responding to apologies."

 _Bless his heart,_ she couldn't help but think, glad that he was there. Hopefully having a conversation would help her stamp down on the disappointment.

Marcelle managed to send the young dwarf a weak smile, before focusing her attention on the crest of Buttercup's neck. It bobbed up and down as the little mare happily plodded along after Dori's pony.

Lowering her voice, she confessed, "Well, I've never had to deal with someone like Thorin before, so I guess I'm a little shaken."

A new voice suddenly piped up on her right, making her jump in surprise before she whipped her head around. The young, light-haired dwarf who walked across Bilbo's table was now riding just to her right, wearing a small, grim smile. "That's my uncle for you—rough around the edges, he is."

Marcelle shot him a raised eyebrow of incredulity. "Oh, really? Are all dwarves this crass towards women in general?"

Suffice to say, all Marcelle got from Fíli was a thoughtful hum. She never got her answer. Again.

* * *

After their second day of travel, news traveled down the line of dwarves that let her know that they would be riding straight through Bree, a town on the road, and would stop to step up camp a few miles from the town.

Marcelle couldn't help but inwardly groan at the discarded chance to lie in a bed for a night—but she wasn't willing to confront Thorin about it. And she understood the dwarf's logic on the subject, no doubt everyone would be getting curious about the mountain, since Smaug hadn't made an appearance in 60 years, and everyone would be watching the dwarves. She didn't want to complain, but the ground wasn't very comfortable to sleep on, though.

 _You wanted to come because you needed to come,_ she reminded herself again.

The one thing that kept her going was the fact that she might see her family again. She missed them enough that she wondered if her worry ran deeper than what she was aware of—because the second night into the journey she awoke do find herself drenched in sweat and breathing heavily after dreaming about her family being ripped away from her shortly before being consumed by a dragon.

When they stopped for the night, Marcelle couldn't help but let out a little sigh, of what, she didn't know. But when she thought about it, it felt five parts weariness and five parts loneliness or sadness. But then she slapped herself in the face, loud and hard, drawing a few chuckles from the dwarves around her.

 _You can no longer go on with this pity-party, Marcelle,_ she told herself sternly. _Do not be sad, do not be lonely. Just think about the day you'll return to your family. You'll fall apart long before you do if you do not stop fretting._ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

She took out some bread and jerky and looked out over the edge of the bluff they had settled on. She stood and stared out into the gathering darkness as she enjoyed her meager meal. A fond smile appeared on her face when she thought, _I think Mom would love the scenery here. Maybe Dad too. It reminds me a lot of New Zealand._

"Marcelle?" Bilbo's voice gently tore her from her thoughts as she finished swallowing the last of her meal.

Turning, she looked down at her friend. "Yes, Bilbo?"

"I'm going to turn in," he said before promptly rolling out his bed roll.

Marcelle nodded. "Alright." She eyed the setting sun and noted how it was half behind the horizon. She turned to face the sun fully and discretely pulled her phone from a pocket under her jacket. Checking the time, she decided it wouldn't hurt to go to bed this early. She wasn't a morning person, so the more sleep she got gave her a better chance of getting up quickly in the morning.

Tucking her phone back into its pocket, she went over and unrolled her bed roll next to Bilbo's. She stretched out on it and ignored how her heels rested on the dirt, and draped her purple jacket over her. She then rolled onto her side and shut her eyes.

Consciousness faded, but remained within reach for what felt like an eternity until she sensed Bilbo shifting next to her. She listened to him move until it sounded like he had gotten to his feet. A moment later, she heard the tell-tale sound of a pony crunching on something—maybe an apple.

But then, sharp as a sword, a blood-curdling shriek cut through the air. Marcelle found herself lurching into a sitting position, heart racing so fast that it felt like it was going to burn a hole in her chest. For a few moments, she struggled with panic until she managed to stamp down on it.

What was _that_?


End file.
